Only Lovers Left Alive
by YellowFlicker
Summary: After the confrontation with Slade, Oliver and Felicity have been toeing a line that neither seems in a hurry to define just yet. It won't be long, however, before Malcolm Merlyn's machinations drag them all into a conflict they are not ready to face, with everything to lose against an enemy they cannot hope to defeat.
1. Chapter 1

_AN: this is an Olicity Fic Big Bang submission._ Thank you so, _SO MUCH_ to so-caffeinated who was my cheerleader through this, and whose encouraging comments never failed to remind me why I started writing this, even when i thought i was *so* done and the next word felt like pulling teeth. And Thank you to my beta, Claire - andcreation - who had a lot of work, cause I write without much regard for actual rules of grammar and punctuation.

If you swing around to my AO3 account ( I'm YellowFlicker there too) you can also see the gorgeous banner that fallingmelet made for this story.

Enoy!

o

o

 _ **0\. Prologue**_

 _"_ _reasons to not to kiss him:_

 _1\. you weren't raised to love tender.  
_ _2\. when he's around all you do is tremble. when he's around you want to get on your knees. look how much power he has over you. it's dangerous.  
_ _3\. he's too good at forgiving and you're too good at violence.  
_ _4\. you know what they say about monsters. you know what happens to the boys who love them. are you going to do that to him?  
_ _5\. your hands don't know how to be gentle. think about the last beautiful thing that shattered in your palms. the fresh rosebuds crumbling between your fingers like a bruise. you wolf-boy, you war machine. you wouldn't know how to hold something magic and not destroy it.  
_ _6\. if you hurt him it might kill you  
_ _7\. if you hurt him you might kill yourself.  
_ _8\. you are very bad at rehabilitation. this is one addiction you'd fail to give up. he's going to ruin you for all other kisses and all other boys and you'll spend the rest of your life trying to forget his name._

 _"_ _reasons to kiss him:_

 _1\. because he's beautiful.  
_ _2\. because he asked.  
_ _3\. because he preceded please with, I'm not afraid of you."_

 _—_ _yes & no / natalie wee_

o

o

She's watching him. He can feel it. The awareness her eyes on him sparks off is almost physical. It feels more like a touch than a look and _that_ … that is making things difficult for him at the moment.

He's up on the salmon ladder, on the highest bar doing chin-ups, concentrating on his breathing, his form, the burn of his muscles. And knowing that she's alternating between staring at his back and his ass makes Oliver's diaphragm feel like jelly, heart bouncing between his throat and his stomach. Which makes chin-ups that much more a challenge, after the first 100.

Felicity has never kept her appreciation for him all hot and sweaty a secret. She's made a hobby of it actually; a kind of recreational distraction. Like watching TV (' _-but better'. She'd say something like that, and depending on how intentional the slip was, she'd either give him an unflinching smile, or follow with babble that would probably just make it worse and make_ him _smile_ ). It used to be one of those unspoken, harmless truths between them that were cute ( _because_ she _was_ ) and never acknowledged out loud.

Another silent truth is that Oliver has never merely 'tolerated' it. ' _Toleration_ ' implies passivity. Whatever the nature of their relationship, whatever shift had come with time, the one thing that has always been true is that there has never been anything passive about Oliver's feelings for Felicity.

Even so far as the very beginning, when Felicity was all low, curly ponytails and her compromising little slips were still surprising, Oliver had liked her eyes on him. Liked it because everything she did was so earnest and it tickled at him in a way Oliver had honestly thought he'd lost forever. Because her appreciation of his body had little to do with him anyway: it was about the fact that she knew Oliver was aware how attractive he was, and she was utterly unabashed about staring for that very reason. It used to be like this unacknowledged joke between just the two of them. Something harmless… that was not quite as harmless as Oliver had liked to think it was.

That particular truth had slapped Oliver in the face sometime last year. That a smarmy-asshole part of him ( _that would never be completely scorched out, apparently_ ) had always liked knowing that Felicity had a crush on him. He'd indulged in it, like picking at a scabbed wound, by giving her something to stare at, enjoying her open appreciation. His harmless little ego boost. And he did it despite the fact that Oliver very deliberately ( _and resolutely_ ) had planted her in the 'people you will never touch, ever' compartment of his brain. There had been something vaguely reassuring about it; about knowing that she wanted him. A vague sort of warmth that Oliver had refused to examine too closely… and that had made something gross and vicious inside him snarl when her attention threatened to shift to someone else.

He's been afraid of depending on people for the longest time, but all the same, Felicity and Digg have become lifelines. And Oliver doesn't take well to the idea of losing either of them.

He's never liked sharing, has he?

Oliver huffs as he pulls his chin over the metal bar. He is ridiculous, and this time he knows it. Like a kid with a toy, right? Doesn't really want to hold on to it, but doesn't want anyone to have it either.

The surge of resentment tears at the inside of his ribs, trapped and directionless anger that makes him grit his teeth and push himself harder than before with a grunt.

The muscles in his arms are screaming. Oliver likes them that way.

Maybe he'll just slip and fall. ( _He knows he won't_ )

Back when he had no fucking clue what was going on, Oliver had done a pretty good impression of a five year old with a tantrum. But it wasn't like that anymore.

Hadn't been for a long time.

He remembers her smile at the shores of Lian Yu, the way she'd so obviously been feeling him out.

That had changed things.

Ok, that's not the whole truth. Things had been changing for a while and Oliver knows that. He'd been painfully aware of those changes and frantically trying to hold them back at the same time. That wasn't really an option after Slade. Surprisingly enough, after so much running from himself ( _only to come back at the same starting point_ ) Oliver hadn't wanted to. When Felicity had given him the chance, he'd stayed silent; hadn't taken back anything.

Yes, things have changed. But at the same time they really haven't. This thing between them… it hadn't always been _this kind_ of something; but at the same time, there has never been _nothing_ there either. They have always had a connection, something almost tangible, but not quite. An undercurrent that just kept pushing them closer together. Colleagues, friends, partners. Something else. Its gravitational force perceptible now, because it makes the space between them feel hot, turning Oliver into a creature so self-aware around her that even the dust molecules in the air grate against his skin. Giving in to it, even just thinking about it makes Oliver's stomach drop, as if he's standing at the edge of some great height, one foot already out, about to take that leap.

Oliver lets go of the bar and falls on his feet with a dull thump, bending his knees to absorb the impact. He takes deep controlled breaths to normalize his heartbeat. Knows that if he'd turned around at the right time, he would have seen the swish of her long ponytail over her shoulder for how fast she turned her head.

Felicity doesn't get caught staring anymore, for some reason. ( _he_ knows _the reason. There's nothing harmless about it now. …They're standing too close to each other for anything to be harmless now._ )

Oliver walks around to her workstation, plants himself on her side, asks her about the case details. Felicity answers without a pause in her typing. At some point she does look up and when she meets his eyes full on, her speech slows just a little bit. Her eyes smile.

She teases him. He teases back, without looking away. Oliver doesn't think of himself as a particularly funny guy anymore ( _was he ever?_ ), but he can make Felicity laugh every once in awhile.

She looks at him with bright smiley eyes, even her nose smiles at him, with that adorable little crinkle… And there it is: Vertigo[3] _._

Heart-swooping dizziness.

He's such a liar, really. There's no teetering at the edge going on here: he's already falling, eyes wide open.

He's been falling with every small touch, fingers brushing when she hands him the coms or a bottle of water. With every look that lingers a little too long to be easily blinked away. Every night that they stay behind in the lair, just being around each other without even talking, Oliver has been getting a little bit closer to the reality of this _thing_ between them that is so huge he can see hardly anything past it. And so frail, it's like holding a tiny newborn bird in his hands and feeling the softness of its fluttering wings against his rough palms.

It's overwhelming.

It's fucking terrifying.

Because he is already in so deep, has been for so long, that feeling like this – allowing himself to - is like waking up. Because there are secrets he hides between his ribs, but they are making space for new ones now. Little truths that don't hurt the way he's used to and that flutter to life every time Felicity is close, every time she speaks to him on the coms when it's quiet, just to say 'Hey' and hear him say it back. Every time she tells him to come home. And how in the privacy of his head it's starting to sound more and more like 'come home to her' than anything else. There was _so much_ there, layers and layers of complexities, of intimacy and closeness of working for so long with someone that he had immediately liked, as a person, ever since the first time they met. It's the genuine affection Oliver had surprised himself into feeling, tender as a bruise, and that had only grown, slipping through the cracks if his defenses silently without him ever even noticing. A feeling so intricate that when the words had escaped his mouth that night at the mansion, for a panicked moment he'd thought ' _oh god what have I said_ ' …and then he'd known it was the truth[4].

It had stopped his heart really, knowing that, right then.

It still does every once in awhile, if he thinks about it too long.

And it all makes Oliver wonder what goes on inside Felicity's head too. He looks at her profile when she's busy coding – when he knows she's so into what she's doing that she won't notice him staring. ( _no such luck with the others though_ )

He knows that he's not alone in this. That she feels it too, even if a little bit. Felicity probably is not so far gone as he is; that it's not as serious for her as it most definitely feels like for him. He doesn't think that's possible or even realistic and there is a big part of him that hopes she's not. ( _the other part of him is vicious in hoping she is right there on even ground with him, because no, he's not above being selfish_ )

He could just let it happen.

He could let himself go and just _breathe_ ; be around her and it _would happen_.

Oliver knows it.

On those moments, when he lets himself think about it, Oliver imagines her hands wrapped around his beating heart and the shiver that crawls up his spine and counts his every vertebrae. He knows himself well enough to face that truth openly. Felicity would never mean to hurt, but he'd still feel her every twitch like an exposed nerve, wouldn't he?

It's a scary thought really, more so than any naked blade he's ever faced.

He already imposes enough on her as it is, anyway. She's been the Hood's IT girl, been accessory to murder and all kinds of violence. Jumped out of a plane for him, practically given up her career for his mission by playing at being Oliver-fucking-Queen's assistant and it's too much. Even Felicity has limits. And she deserves so much better really, than someone who is so in pieces that he doesn't even know if he can be whole enough to love her like she deserves to be loved.

Felicity deserves someone like Barry Allen, Oliver thinks with a wince, as he steps in the shower. He keeps the water scorching hot, just because.

She deserves someone whole and open and uncomplicated. Someone smart the way she is and who doesn't carry around more baggage than an international airport.

Someone who wouldn't put her under the scrutiny of half the world if they were dating, because being Oliver Queen's pretty blonde assistant is one thing, but it's still worlds away from actually dating that man. Awareness of that difference, of the kind of world he grew up in and how merciless it can be, is like a thorn between his shoulder-blades. Especially because he also knows that his existence is built like a house of cards and for all his efforts Oliver has no illusions – it will crash down one day. His multiple hollow lives: Oliver Queen, The Arrow, The Bratva captain, Waller's once leashed-dog that she kept trying to snatch back - they are slowly but surely on the way to collision and he doesn't want Felicity smacked in the middle of that when it happens. How will he ever be able to keep her safe then?

The problem is that most of the time, all Oliver can see, ten miles down the road, is every single negative thing and he can't find even a single reason why it would be worth it for her. It's that if he but lets himself slip down that slope, there will be no coming back from it and Oliver doesn't trust himself enough to remember to let her go, when it gets to be too much.

Would he be able to?

His fingers curl into tight fists against the warming tile of the shower and Oliver hangs his head, the pressure of the hot water slapping the back of his neck, trying to loosen the tension there. He expels a long shaky breath as the water rolls off him in rivulets.

It scares him that he doesn't know.

He doesn't, and it's another problem, because he's earned himself enemies like Slade Wilson and Amanda Waller, and others he would continue to make, who give no quarter and have no limit. It's the fact that he has never once been able to touch someone and _not_ hurt them in some way. Never. Every single person he's ever loved has slipped between his bloody fingers and he still has nightmares that wake him drenched in cold sweat, his heart drumming like it's about to crack his breastbone. About his mother's sightless eyes, Thea's screams and Tommy's listless face. About Shado in the woods, Sara swallowed by the ocean, Felicity unmoving on the concrete floor, her face pale and cold, her blood violent red, wet against his skin.

A shiver rattles his spine and it's only then that Oliver realizes that the water has gone cold. He honestly has no idea how long he stood under the spray and for a moment all the can do is blink against the white tiles of the wall and try to grasp at the straws of his thoughts.

The first thing he hears once he gets into the main area is Felicity's laugh. It's low, she's chuckling, sitting close to Roy on one of the wider chairs, her tablet between them.

"What's going on?" Oliver asks Digg, carefully keeping his voice low. Some survival tactics do lend themselves to the most unexpected scenarios. Digg just shrugs and keeps cleaning the insides of his disassembled gun, the smaller pieces arranged in a precise order around the table. Oliver turns his attention back to the duo as he does the cuffs of his button up.

"No, no the other one! The _other_ one!" Felicity says, almost jumping up and down on her seat. Roy's fingers move even faster on the screen. Felicity squeals a moment later, and offers her hand for a high-five.

It's an easy familiarity that she and Roy have grown into. Easy affection. They have their jokes Oliver doesn't get and sit together sometimes and talk in low voices about things Oliver doesn't know.

But then again everyone seems to slide into place easily around Felicity Smoak. He's never had an easy time like that around her, not really. It's different between them. Not difficult, exactly. Oliver looks at the picture she and Roy make sitting there playing what is probably some game, and tries to find a word for it that will fit.

Felicity looks up in the moment and blinks twice at finding him leaning against the weapon rack and just staring. Neither looks away for long moments and in those moments awareness of anything but her and that contemplative look on her face strips away in layers. Her eyebrows twitch in a small momentary frown. ' _Something wrong_?' Oliver feels one side of his mouth curve upwards into half a smile as he shrugs and shakes his head minutely. She pleads the case of her curiosity with a small tilt of her head, but smiles back nonetheless. The urge to look down to his feet gets stronger with every lick of heat at the back of his neck.

A sad-trombone ringtone and Roy's groan breaks the moment. Felicity snaps her eyes on the tablet.

" _No_! Where did your brain go, Scarecrow?" she laments as she smacks Roy's chest.

"Hey! That's offensive, Barbie." Roy protests, stuck between latter and disbelief. Felicity rolls her eyes.

"Don't worry Roy, I think you've probably met your Wizard of Oz by now." She explains as if it's obvious. Roy's answers with thicker confusion. He looks from Felicity to Oliver, whose smile widens. Digg snickers from his seat, without ever looking up.

"Oh come one, from the movie. Wizard of Oz, Roy!" Felicity says then, impatient. It's quickly followed by a huff as she gets up and snatches back her tablet. "Of course you haven't seen it. No appreciation for the classics. Kids these days."

Roy raises one eloquent eyebrow at her.

"And you're what? Three seconds older than I am?"

Felicity turns quickly. "I resent that. And _you_ need some movie education, STAT." her eyes widen and she bites her lip, a look in her eyes that she gets when she has an unexpected idea. It's a look that instinctively makes Oliver tense and Digg look up; a testimony to the lives they lead, since usually - not always, but usually - Felicity's unexpected ideas involve blowing something up.

"We could make a night of it." She adds quickly, looking at them one by one. "My place. Oliver can bring the wine. Digg, you're in charge of the food, cause we all know how that would end if I do it. Tell Lyla too, obviously. Ok? Great!" She turns directly to Oliver then. "We have to go. Walter's waiting for us."

Oliver gives her a nod as he straightens. He could have laughed at how quickly that turned from contemplation to possibility, to an action plan, in the space of a sentence and a half. He could have, if it wasn't how they operated every night out there. Maybe that was why nobody thought of objecting.

She grabs her purse and a couple of files, raising her eyebrows at him. Oliver is right by her side in three strides. From this close he can tell she's wearing the fruity perfume today. Which makes sense - her nails are painted soft pink.

She's already talking a mile a minute as they go up the stairs and Oliver is only half listening. He should pay more attention, he really should. The triangle cutout high on her shoulder blades has never been more distracting though.

…No word to describe this has come to mind yet. Oliver hadn't really thought he'd find one anyway.

Felicity turns to him quite suddenly and he's not even registered her ponytail swishing around her head when he feels her hand on the crook of his elbow, through the layers of his light jacket and shirt.

"You don't mind, do you? I mean, I thought it would be nice. We don't really see each other that much out of the lair and you're starting to spend way too much time in there for it to be healthy."

For a fluttering moment he can't answer because the only 'we' his brain seems to be able to supply is about her and him. It takes Oliver a couple of breaths to catch up with the last few moments

"We're not calling it that." he enunciates slowly. He's just buying time, really. "And no, I don't mind. You're right, it would be nice. And we haven't seen Lyla in a while."

The smile she gives him is radiant.

"Great!"

It makes him want to reach over and touch her face.

Oliver curls his fingers in a fist, nails biting at his palm. Looking away doesn't really make a difference. He knows her face by heart. The little dip at the base of her throat the line that leads up to her chin, the bow of her lips… The company car is bigger than her tiny Mini, but Oliver can still catch a whiff of her perfume even from across the seat.

He takes a breath and closes his eyes, leaning his head back against the seat.

Oliver knows himself enough to be able to face that he isn't the best of men. He is a selfish man, trying to be a good man. And of all the risks dancing around them like shadows, the most dangerous one seems to be his own self. Because he might just want Felicity more than she might need him to. Because he is learning to want… to _hope_ , and it is like coming alive again. Like that gasping deep breath after a too long dive: one long lungful of air that stops the burn in your chest and teaches you that even air has a taste - you just never noticed before. It hurts a little, this feeling. The same way shedding callouses does.

It's because of this feeling that he's been detouring his usual morning jog so that he bypasses that small coffee-shop that Felicity likes so much. She usually reads, either a book or from her tablet, sitting in the corner, back to the wall and the exits and windows within her line of sight, just like he and Digg taught her.

He lingers, every now and then. In moments like that, when all that is standing between possibility and reality is just a threshold, Oliver's world usually narrows down to the fast-beating heart in his chest and anxiety snapping at his heels. He wants to walk in there and join her. Wants to see the surprised smile she'll give him. Wants to ask her what she's reading.

He does.

Two weeks after they have their first movie night and he makes her laugh to breathlessness when he tells her about the first time he tried to zipline through a window and smacked against the glass instead. He sees her in that small coffee shop on a day no different than the ones before, and just walks in. It feels like an impulsive decision. The more honest truth is that it has been coming for almost a year.

He walks to her table and says ' _Hey_ ' softly, trying not to startle her. He fails. The smiles that comes after, bright and alive, the surprised (delighted) way she says his name, shocks happiness into him, like a jolt of adrenaline.

It makes his hands shake. He smiles back anyway.


	2. Chapter 2

**_Part One_**

 _1._

 _"I was the infector.  
I was the poison breather.  
I was a professional,  
but you have saved me  
from the awful bubble  
of that calling."_

 _\- Anne Sexton, from The Complete Poems_

Oliver crouches in the thick shadows of the building, feeling his heart rate slow down with every controlled breath as he focuses his senses to a needle's point. He lets himself become one with the darkness, until his muscles are loose and his exhales thin enough not to disturb the air around him. Until he can pick up where every sound of the night comes from and who is making it; what is relevant and what is not, and every pebble of the uneven ground beneath his boots.

This is how he used to hunt on the island... and after: still in one place for hours, until he was part of the scenery. Until he was as cold or as hot as the stones around him, the earth beneath, and his prey wouldn't see him coming.

He's hunting now too – though his prey is of a different nature. He listens to his team take position, calmly executing through their own part of the plan with a seamless sharpness that is starting to become familiar.

"Ok. I just hacked the feed," Felicity's steady voice informs him. "For the next half an hour I own the building."

Oliver swallows down the nerves that her voice brings to the surface, trying not to think about how she's alone in there, and nods.

"Good. Digg-"

"I got her, man," John immediately intercepts. Oliver knows that he does, but he still struggles with the idea of putting Felicity in any kind of danger.

It's useless though: this was the only way.

"Ok," He says finally. "Everyone get in position."

And he's about to move, when another voice, one he hasn't heard in months, cuts the silence, startling everyone into attention.

"Need an extra hand?"

Oliver freezes.

" _ _Sara!__ " Felicity's whispered shout in his ear almost makes him flinch. It's her voice and the naked enthusiasm in it however, that jars him out of his momentary stupor and disbelief.

Sara's answering chuckle is warm and sounds so close Oliver itches to reach out.

"Yup," Sara says and Oliver finds himself smiling, answering that smile he can hear in Sara's voice as well.

Felicity's practically squealing. "Oh my __god__ , I missed you!"

Sara laughs at that, warm and close.

"Oh come on, I haven't been gone that long," She points out, though there is a definite note of affection in her voice, one that Oliver can easily spot because he knows how Sara sounds when she's missed someone. "I was on my way to another meeting point when I picked up your radio chatter. You should mix up the frequencies a bit, Felicity."

"I mix them enough," Felicity answers pointedly and Oliver's lips twitch.

He knows that the only reason Felicity leaves their communication system open in channels Sara is familiar with, is so that the Canary can pick them up whenever she likes. It's the door that Felicity holds always open for her, a huge 'welcome home sign', and Oliver would bet anything that Sara knows that.

"Good to hear your voice, Canary," Digg says warmly.

"Yeah. It is," Roy adds, and Oliver has to give it to the kid for fairness there, cause the last time Sara and Roy saw each other it wasn't in the best of circumstances.

"Ok everyone. Focus. We have a job to do," Oliver reminds them.

"Right," Sara says tersely. "Where do you guys need me?"

Oliver feels smile growing, that warmth in the pit of his belly heating him up all the way to the tips of his fingers gripping his bow.

"Canary, you're shadowing Arsenal. Let him fill you in. Felicity-"

"Alright. Time for some fireworks." And if she sounds just a little bit too excited for someone who's about to blow a hole into a building, it only makes Oliver smile. "This one's for you Canary. A welcome home treat."

Sara chuckles. "Sweet of you."

"Bombing instead of a gift-card," Roy deadpans. "Aren't you getting a bit extreme here, Felicity."

Felicity scoffs. "Such a critic."

"You do have a bit of an arsonist in you, babe," Sara points out nonchalantly. Digg snorts. Oliver tries to hold his back.

"Everyone has their calling," Felicity says and Oliver can practically hear the shrug in her voice. "Timer's set. And 3... 2... 1..."

The explosion tears the silence of the night apart like a thunderclap and Oliver feels the hair at the back of his neck stand up. Time to get to work.

Felicity's fingers fly over the keyboard as layers and layers of data give in to her will. But the programming changes and as she goes deeper into it, peeling the protection back like an orange, and just when she thinks she's finally getting through, that's where it changes, again.

She swears uncharacteristically, through tightly gritted teeth.

The com in her ear comes to life immediately.

"Felicity? Everything alright?" Oliver asks, his voice a thick rumble that sounds about as tense as she feels right now.

"Everything's fine," Felicity is quick to reassure him, as she begins again, pursing her lips tight, frustrated with herself for the waste of time.

Oliver has been checking in with her every three minutes, jumping into her ear all growly at every minimal sound. She knows he's on edge because she's alone in the private office of an international arms dealer and frankly, Felicity is hella nervous about that too, but they had all agreed that Digg could keep her safer if he kept his distance and watched her back as a sniper, than in there with her where he could only have eyes on one exit at a time.

The sounds of fighting that filter through her com also never fail to remind her that they are short on time and on a very tight schedule here, and she is holding them back. Oliver and Roy won't be able to lead Steelgate's men on a merry chase forever.

"Their security is a bit more complex than I first anticipated," she says, the words sounding absentminded because 99% of her brainpower is focused like a laser on the program. "It uses a polymorphic engine to mutate the code. Whenever I try to gain access, it changes." She huffs out a breathy chuckle at the irony. Under less stress stressful circumstances, this would have been so much fun, damn it. "It's like solving a Rubik's cube that's fighting back[5]. Which would be awesome any other time, but right now - not so much."

"Take it easy." Oliver tells her, sounding steady and sure even through the modulator, like he's trying to calm her down, ease her into comfort. "You've got time."

"I really don't actually. They're gonna catch up with you guys eventually."

"Don't worry about that."

Felicity dismisses that with a hum. Right, like there's any chance of her not worrying when he's out dancing with bullets.

She's so close… so __close__ to cracking this. Words and numbers flash in quick succession on the screen without any kind of order, but by now Felicity knows that any combination of them is going to contain the key of this system's encryption. She knew the moment she saw this programming that the solution here would not be hacking in, but decrypting the puzzle. With unnaturally-quick movements born of practice, Felicity connects her tablet to the mainframe and reroutes that list to her brand new decrypting program she wrote this summer. It's subtlety at its best and freaking fantastic, in Felicity's not so humble opinion. _'_ _ _Don't disappoint me Grace'__ [6]

Her tablet beeps. She has to try three different possibilities before the correct one unlocks the system's defenses… and just like that, she's in.

"Yes!" She hisses in sharp delight, pumping her fist in the air.

The whole network that before seemed like just gibberish lines of code that kept slamming her out, now unravels for her, warm and ready as a lover. The rush of it __crackles__ hot in her veins; an overwhelming feeling that tastes of success but packs a headier punch, because __this__ … this is illicit, but __right__ and purest form of creation Felicity has ever known.

 _ _God it feels good__.

An adrenaline fix like no other.

"Felicity?"

She sucks in a shaky breath when she hears his voice, eyes fluttering closed for a heartbeat. Honestly, the only thing that would have made this moment better for her was hearing his voice - and there he is.

"I'm in," She says thickly, and then clears her throat. "Three minutes to clean this baby out and I'm done."

"Good," Oliver grumbles and Felicity smiles despite herself. It was just one word but she could read his relief like it was a wave that lapped warmly at her ankles.

"Perimeter still clear," Digg says calmly. And then, in a tone that immediately makes her think of his sly smile, he adds: "Did you pump your fist in the air? It sounded like you pumped your fist in the air."

Felicity rolls her eyes. "I did not __sound__ like I pumped my fist in the air, Digg – you can see me."

" _ _I__ can't," Sara interjects sounding a little out of breath but otherwise fine. "And I heard it too."

"Yup," Roy adds around what Felicity bets is a smirk.

The part of Felicity's brain that is not currently engaged in skimming the data she is acquiring from Steelgate's main servers, feels actually quite affronted that they all have the nerve to __tease__ her while they're being chased by huge men with big guns. And while she can think something for Sara later, she knows just what humbling experience to put Roy through. One of those ridiculous duck-face picture from that one vodka-night is going to find its way in his twitter account one of these days.

 _ _Just you wait, Red Riding Hood. Just you wa…__

Felicity's breath stops, eyes widening.

"Oh…"

"What?" Oliver barks in her ear, jumpy as ever.

"Oh, wow. We have __so__ hit the jackpot with this one, guys," Felicity breathes out softly, eyeing the accumulating data. "Fake end user certificates. Cut out companies - meticulously catalogued, by the way. This guy has got to be the best organized criminal we've come across. And his shipping logs… " Felicity's eyes narrow on the list of shipments and she whistles. "Huh, there is hardly a warlord, dictator, despot anywhere in the world he is not first name basis with, apparently[7]."

"Felicity, just get out of there." Oliver says, impatience rising.

"Almost there."

And she is. Thirty more seconds and she unplugs her tablet and the USB drive, stuffs them both in her small wraparound bag and scrams, running through the empty administrative floor as quietly as she can. Once she gets to the exit ramp, Felicity checks the status of her team's movements before she puts her phone in her pocket and waits, heart pounding in her ears.

"East side's clear," Digg informs her and it's then – and __only__ then –that Felicity open the door and starts bolting down the emergency stairwell. She tries to keep her breathing steady, gulping down air at precise intervals, through her nose and out of her mouth, just like Digg taught her.

"You're doing good Felicity," Digg assures her and it's so familiar she just has to smile. "Oliver's two seconds outside your location."

"Copy that." Felicity gasps. "Or is it roger? I never know the difference.[8]"

She gets no answer to that and if her lungs and thigh muscles hadn't been burning with the effort of climbing down 22 flights of stairs, Felicity would have protested. She gets to the exit door that will lead her into the back alley and opens it carefully, after she has taken three full breaths to calm down. They doesn't work – she's still edgy as hell, but Digg's 'three full breaths before you do anything stupid' is a golden rule Felicity lives by.

Just as she's peeking around the door, a black, nondescript SUV screeches to a stop in the alley. For a moment Felicity's afraid, because Oliver left the Lair tonight in his bike, not a car, and she's just about to turn the frack around and run the hell out of there when the passenger door bursts open to show her Oliver, in full Arrow gear, behind the wheel.

Felicity jumps in, straps the seatbelt on as Oliver flies the car out into the night again.

"What happened to the bike?" She asks breathlessly, turning to look at him as heart tries to find it's normal pace again and fails. "You didn't say anything about leaving it behind."

"We had some… unforeseen difficulties," Oliver answers through gritting teeth. She means to say something – trying to decide between asking him why he didn't tell her about these 'unforeseen difficulties' before and asking him why he's driving like he's the reincarnation of an eastern European cab driver. She's decided to lead with the first one when Oliver reeves harshly to the left and her breath is cut by how hard the seatbelt digs at her chest.

"Hold on!" he says through tightly gritted teeth.

"Could have used knowing that before." Felicity mutters as she rubs her shoulder. "Are we being chased?"

An array of bullets as they cut another corner answers that for her. She could almost roll her eyes, if she were that type of person, which she's not.

"Right. Of course we're being chased. I bet they're Russian and have like, huge guns or something. Do they have huge guns? Those felt like bullets from really…"

" _ _Felicity__!"

"Sorry, sorry. It's the nerves, I think. And the bullets. Not a fan of those," She says as she grips the seat tighter.

Oliver huffs. "Yeah, me either."

Felicity chances a look his way. His lips are curling upward at the corner the way they do when he finds something funny but doesn't really want to smile. But he is smiling. Kinda. Still, Felicity will take what she can get. Even a 'kinda' smile is not an easy achievement when he's under that hood.

They cut another hard corner and something else besides speed makes Felicity's stomach drop this time.

"Was it me? Did I take too long?" she asks, heart in her throat. If they're being __shot at__ right now because she wasn't good enough…

"No," Oliver says immediately. Like there is no possible way the answer to that could be different. "They spotted us and I had to distract them."

Felicity nods. When it's about their Arrow work, but especially when they're like this, in the field, they have to trust each other 110%. Oliver wouldn't try to soften anything for her out here, he knows her better than that. Knows how she __works__ better than that. And honestly, Felicity is not afraid, not really. But she doesn't like high-speed chases either. They tend to take her into that particular moment when she'd last been in one, when the van had flipped over and for a split second she really thought that was it.

Oliver glances back at her quickly. His hands tighten on the steering wheel.

"It's ok. Digg, Sara and Roy are behind them," he tells her then, his voice sounding just a little bit gentler, curtness of his 'Arrow' voice momentarily set aside. "As soon as we pass the tunnel on the 23rd, we'll set off the charges and trap them in."

Felicity nods again. Looks around. Notices the disarray of wires spilling into Oliver's lap from the dashboard like little colorful snakes.

Ugh, so sloppy.

"Where did you learn how to hotwire a car anyway?" she asks offhandedly, not really expecting an answer. It's one of those questions that flies out of her mouth when she's jittery and needs a distraction.

"Summer 2005," Oliver deadpans, his tone as normal as if they were in the lair, counting ammunition.

They make a sharp turn to the left and she feels her shoulder pull for how hard she's holding on to the door's handle. Still, if she hadn't, the seatbelt digging into her skin would probably have hurt worse.

"Tommy and I got into some trouble for… borrowing a Shelby GT500," Oliver explains.

Felicity smiles as Digg and Roy snort over the coms. Despite the high speed chase and bullets, they're still on the line. It's a calming thought.

"Borrowing?" Her question is colored by the laughter she's suppressing.

"There might have been a bit of confusion on that," Oliver answers her and to anyone else his tone would have sounded flat but Felicity doesn't have to look at him to know he's smiling.

"I bet there was."

"Hard left," Oliver warns.

Felicity braces and squeals when they turn, because she ends up getting flattened against the door. The door's handle digs in her arm uncomfortably and she is really thinking twice about the sandwich she had earlier but for some reason the whole thing just makes her laugh. From the corner of her eyes she sees Oliver give her a fleeting look.

"You ok?"

He sounds worried.

"Fine, fine," Felicity says, trying to calm down and wishing her voice didn't sound so squeaky. She really needs to find her chill in these situations. One would think she would be a pro at them by now, but she always ends up doing things like laughing about things only she finds funny, or babbling to infinity. Maybe it's a coping mechanism.

"There aren't any grand theft auto charges on your record." Felicity points out then. "Not on Tommy's either."

The fact that he doesn't ask how she knows that is either proof that he knows her too well, or that he's simply resigned to fact that she is professionally nosy.

"Yeah. You don't get those when Moira Queen and Malcolm Merlyn are your parents, " Oliver says, voice carelly flat.

Felicity shrugs. "Huh. Makes sense."

Her coms crack with static and Digg's loud warning.

" _ _Incoming__!"

A sharp inhale is all Felicity has time for before the 'incoming' gets there. There's a mighty explosion and her world tilts out sharply from beneath her feet.

There is a moment in which everything blacks out but it passes in a blink. Felicity opens her eyes feeling as if she just closed them, breathing harshly, but relaxing the moment she feels nothing is hurting particularly excruciatingly. Through the tiny bells ringing in her ears she reaches out for Oliver, just as she hears his voice calling her name.

" _ _Felicity__! Look at me."

She blinks some more, tells him she's fine as she straightens, feels the hold on her arm, his gloved hand on her face.

She turns to face him.

"I'm ok," Felicity repeats, firmer this time. "I am."

Oliver stays still, eyes unblinking on her for a couple of moments, and then nods stiffly, as if against his will. Felicity can't see clearly through the darkness the hood casts around his face, but she sees the tense line of his jaw - there is a jumpy muscle there doing that twitchy thing that always means he's scowling something fierce.

"Stay in the car," he orders – because there is no mistaking that tone - as he gets out so quickly one would never know they had another car crash into them at 80 miles an hour. She hears the distinct sound of bullets from outside and coils even more tightly into herself, trying to keep her body low so that any stray shots didn't get to her. She can hear the more familiar mix of grunts and hits from the com link in her ear as well and really, it would be an extraordinary day when one of their plans goes off without a hitch the way it had been meant to.

She flinches away bodily when her brain shoves against her frontal lobe the memory of the last time that had happened and how she'd ended with the cold press of a steel against her throat.

God, even her own cortex is against her right now!

"No good deed goes unpunished" Felicity mumbles through gritted teeth as she reaches inside her jacket for the small automatic weapon Lyla gave her and switches off the safety.

She's been practicing with this thing for two months and she still doesn't like the cold heavy feel of it in her palm.

 _'_ _ _Aim with both hands and both eyes. Try not to close them when you shoot.'__

Easy. As. Pie.

That's a strange expression though. Personally, Felicity has never made pie after that one time when she almost burned the kitchen down. She sticks to more basic things - like ordering out, so that metaphor might not be as appropriate in her case. Or maybe it is.

 _ _Let's not.__

With her other hand she uses the apps on her phone to hack into the traffic cameras of the area and black them out, on the off chance that they might catch Digg's face.

They are going to have a serious discussion about identity concealment once they're out of here!

Felicity chances a glance out of the window and sees that Oliver has planted himself like a live shield in front of the car's passenger door. She feels like smacking him, but she knows she doesn't have to: he's far from stupid, as it turns out, one of the perks of a long Ford slamming into the rear of their SUV is that apparently the carnage of the other car is good for cover, as well as kamikaze attacks.

Small things to be grateful for.

Oliver knocks an arrow and Felicity braces for the explosion that happens about half a second after. She still flinches though, because it sounds so much closer than she thought it would.

Digg's voice in her ear makes Felicity jump just a little bit.

"I got eyes on the RPGs."

"Perimeter secure," Roy adds and then snickers, if a bit breathlessly. "Oh yeah, the Canary is handling the strays."

Felicity takes a deep breath, listens carefully. There are no more sounds coming from outside other than her team's shuffling and her own heavy breathing.

"Felicity?"

It's all he says really, just her name.

She knows what he means.

"Still here. My legs are getting cramped. Aren't SUVs supposed to have more space?"

Before she can even reach for the handle, the door is wrenched open and Oliver is there, reaching for her as he hands his bow to John. Felicity leans forward and then gets stuck in place, totally forgetting that she's strapped in place. She turns with an annoyed huff, meaning to undo the seatbelt, but before she even reaches for it, Oliver is there, leaning in to undo it for her.

And Felicity is left holding her breath, blinking hard against the sight of the column of his throat so close to her face that she could literally just lean over a fraction and she could lick it.

 _…_ _ _and wow brain, slow down!__

But it doesn't really. Nothing ever slows down.

Things just get a bit quieter every once in awhile. Moments when breath gets heavy and a look weighs as much as a touch; moments of edges fading into each other softly, when it's not very clear if it's him that is so close or her that leans in to breathe him closer. Or if they're both moving and the world tilts just a little bit to the side every time.

 _ _Every time.__

She used to hate walking like that, a little one the side, leaning on the wind.

Now she takes a deep breath when he leans close ( _ _sweat and leather and soap, she knows them all so well__ ) and it make her feel safe.

A small uncontrollable giggle escapes makes it past her lips at the thought and she's rewarded with Oliver's alarmed eyes on her, taking in every inch of her face.

"It's ok. I'm ok," Felicity says immediately, a calming hand landing on the inside of his elbow, as she swings her legs to the side.

And the world rushes back in, just as her ears stop ringing.

She can tell Oliver's eyes narrow somewhere along the area of her forehead where there is probably a handsome bruise already blooming up. He wraps the arm she was using as leverage all the way around her waist and lifts her off the SUV. Yup, much better than having to wobble out, Felicity decides once her feet hit the concrete.

"You're bleeding," he says through tight lips just as his hand moves from her waist to her face, cupping her cheek and turning it to the light so he can see the damage better. The momentum of the other car hitting them had sent her head slamming against the window, and his arm reaching out to steady her hand done much to stop that.

"I am?" Felicity sounds surprised and that is not a good thing.

When she reaches her hand up to touch the wound, as if to prove herself it's there, Oliver wraps his hand around hers, to stop her.

"Don't. We'll clean you up once we're back in the Foundry."

"Huh, I didn't think I'd hit my head that hard. It just feels itchy." She contemplates just as tilts her head to see him better under that Hood cause from where he's standing, he looks like he's grinding his teeth and if the does that any harder his molars will probably just snap right of.

"What's wrong?" Felicity asks, looking around to Digg and Roy.

The sound that comes out of Oliver's mouth is probably as close to a growl a human could get. "Nothing."

That most definitely does not sound like a nothing, but instead of pointing that out Felicity gives him one of the 'really' looks over the rim of her grasses – one that Oliver ignores in favor of edging her forward with one hand at the small of her back.

"Are we done here?" Felicity asks looking around at the carnage of three half-totaled cars, a couple of overturned bikes and more men laying around in various states of knocked out.

"All cleaned out," Sara says, approaching them with the slow, deliberate pace of someone taking in everything about their surrounding environment. Felicity feels her face split into a smile. She reaches over for a hug almost as soon as Sara is within range and feels Sara's quiet laugh as they hold on to each other for a short moment.

"Hi," Sara says with a wide smile.

"Hi," Felicity smiles back. "How was your vacation?"

The Canary smiles this time is lopsided and full of teeth. "Hot."

"Let's move out," Digg says as he falls in on Felicity's other side. "SCPD will be here any minute."

Oliver reaches for Felicity again, and he and Sara fall in at her sides, Roy watching their six as Digg leads the way, moving through the wreckage towards their van, which Digg had 'parked' askew on the sidewalk. Felicity sighs as she looks at the tiny holes it's been once again riddled with. One of these night, they will go out in the field and when they come back, Betsy won't need plastic surgery… but tonight is not that night apparently.

"Did you get what we needed?" Roy asks as he looks around, making Felicity turn to give him an insulted look, complete with scrunched up nose and narrowed eyes as she sits herself down.

"Who do you think you're talking to?" she mumbles with just enough outrage in her whisper to make him roll his eyes.

Digg snorts as he gets into the driver's seat and Oliver ushers Felicity in gently and quickly climbs in after her, a hand on her back as if he expects her to kiss the pavement at any moment. As soon as he gets hold of the medical kit, he's flashing a tiny light in front of her eyes, and Felicity instinctively flinches.

"Ow." She complains, rubbing her knuckles against the rapidly watering eye and looking at him a bit betrayed. The complaint is more because he surprised her than anything, to be honest, but Felicity admits that she is pouting a little bit.

What she doesn't expect is the startled look on his face.

"I'm sorry."

The words fly out of his mouth so fast that he seems to catch up with them about at the same time she does.

Felicity sobers up instantly.

"It's fine," she says softly. "It didn't hurt. I was just surprised."

It doesn't fade the regret from his eyes however. He keeps looking at her like he just tore her arm open of something. "I should have warned you. I need to check your pupils."

Felicity sighs but takes off her glasses anyway and keeps still, following the light when he tells her to.

"I'm not concussed," she drawls, feeling as if she's just pointing out the obvious. Which she is.

"You don't know that," Oliver tells her calmly.

"I do actually. The fact that my dinner is where it belongs is a dead giveaway. Now that I think about it, I'm… hungry?" Felicity turns her eyes from Oliver to Sara, who is shaking her wig loose as she watches them. "What do you say to a late dinner with the team, Sara?"

The sharp awareness on Sara's face softens at the invite, that one blink wiping out the look from her eyes. But she shakes her head, biting her lip in honest regret.

"I can't. I'm already super late for meeting up with Laurel – she's gonna bite my head off and have __that__ for dinner instead."

Though Sara doesn't sound one bit bothered by the idea, on the contrary. The excitement in her voice speaks of clear anticipation and it softens Felicity right up. She never had a sister but she can understand missing family.

"But I'll swing by tomorrow, definitely," Sara adds with a wink. "Still keep the mint chip in the freezer?"

Felicity laughs. "Always. Keep a change of clothes for you in the back, too."

Sara stills at those words, smile falling slightly as she takes them in and Oliver knows what she's thinking. She takes a deep breath in silence and then nods, and this time her lips curve upwards just a tiny bit, in a rare, almost shy smile that reads of pure gratitude.

Felicity acknowledges the moment with a nod and then lets it go as if it were no big deal, even though Sara's shiny eyes are staring back at her. But Felicity seems to always know how to handle these moments - or maybe she just inherently does the right thing, because she sees them as people and nothing less than that. Oliver feels a surge of affection for her unfurl from somewhere beneath his sternum, warming him up all the way to the tips of his toes. His girl is one of a kind, he thinks as he watches her purse her lips and narrow her eyes, trying to pinpoint exactly what she's craving for a midnight snack on Thursday night. And it's moments like these that remind Oliver how lucky he is to be allowed in her life. How irreplaceable she has become in his.

"Kinda in the mood for Chinese now," she finally says. "That place you like Oliver, what's it called?"

She nudges her foot against his boot as she asks, face livening up with an expectant smile.

Oliver knows what nerves look on her; the way hysteria adds a sharp edge to her smile and empties her eyes of it. This is neither. She's just hungry, apparently.

A breathy chuckle escapes his lips as he picks himself up from the floor of the van and sits next to her. "Let's get you patched up first. Then we'll think about takeout."

Felicity chews on her fried rice slowly as she leans her hip against the table and studies a 'family tree' more complicated than any they've ever had to build so far: Steelgate Group. The list includes dozens of companies in cities worldwide, but they'd already known that. The surprise is how much of it is rooted in the underground. And how far out the net goes.

When Oliver comes to stand right next to her, arms crossed and shoulders heavy, Felicity turns to look at him.

"So, where does this take us, exactly?" he asks, turning to look at her.

Felicity takes another spoonful of fried rice before answering, taking the time to look over their evidence again.

"Lots of places. Mostly it depends on who we share this with."

And she's thinking Laurel will have to go nationwide with this, because Starling D.A. simply won't have the power to pursue something this big.

One thing at a time, for now.

"Steelgate may have gotten away tonight, but we got what we needed, too," Felicity begins, turning their attention to the screen. "I've got access to his computer and his accountants and lawyers. And, as I always say, computers keep no secrets. So… Steelgate's American assets are genuine, __but__ – color me very much __not__ surprised here - they're the only things that are. The rest is funneled through companies in Gibraltar, Colombia, and Macao."

She picks up one of the plastic containers on the table as she talks – the Korean stuff with the raw egg on top Oliver loves so much - and hands it to him. They're way past the time when he used to argue with her about food, so Oliver simply limits himself to picking up his chopsticks.

Digg and Roy join them too, right about then.

"Now, __these__ companies produce no products and provide no services. They're shells. They launder money from drugs and especially arms sales, as well as crime syndicates in Russia," Felicity knows, just from the air shifts in the room, that Digg is giving Oliver some serious side eye there. She feels the cold of Moscow run down her spine but doesn't turn and doesn't stop talking. "And that money – which accounts for all but 5-percent of Steelgate's holdings - ends up in accounts in the Cayman Islands[10]."

Felicity turns on her heel, giving her back to the screens so that she can look her teammates in the face.

"It's a completely illegal criminal empire guys. And we've got dibs."

It takes a moment to let it sink in, each of them processing in their own way.

"So what happens now?" Roy asks, looking from one to the other. Digg shifts on his feet and Oliver finally looks away from their flat screen turned table of evidence.

"Now… we give the evidence to Laurel," Oliver says slowly, twirling his chopsticks between his fingers. "Internal financial reports, bank records, emails. Everything she'll need to cook him."

Felicity fidgets a bit with the fork in her hand. One look at Digg and she knows that they're thinking the same thing. Oliver probably has been thinking it from the beginning.

Maybe that's why he's had such a frown on his face.

"This is gonna have one hell of a shockwave." Digg says as he eyes the screens. "IRS can't ignore tax fraud like this. The police can't ignore the organized crime stuff. They'll both have to investigate[11]. It'll probably get the FBI involved, too."

Which means extra people being extra nosy – not the ideal situation for Team Arrow. People outside of Starling city don't really have the same tolerance for its vigilantes. People who don't live in the insular universe this city sometimes seems to be will have difficulties understanding the way it runs things. The things its people need, to feel safe.

And yes, Felicity had thought of that.

She steps closer to Oliver, reaches for him. "We'll be careful."

Oliver looks at her and there is something in his eyes, something that curves that tiny frown of his upwards just a little bit and makes her fingers tighten on his sleeve. His eyes settle on her forehead and they brighten with what seems to be almost a soft, unreachable kind of sadness. In Felicity's opinion, a tiny bump on her head wasn't worth all the trouble, but he hadn't listened to her protest. He'd sat her down and she'd been a very special kind of quiet ( _ _the loud kind, from the inside, that buzzes against her breastbone like a hummingbird's wings__ ) as he disinfected it with gentle hands.

"How's your head?" Oliver asks in a voice so soft that barely carries beyond the both of them.

Felicity smiles. "Still attached. Which is a good thing, obviously. I like it there."

He's not in a joking mood tonight though. There's not even a hint of a smile on his face.

"It's starting to swell. You should have kept the icepack on it longer." He tells her, eyeing her forehead critically. From the corner of her eye, Felicity sees his hand move and she's left blinking fast when she feels the tips of his fingers brushing against her hairline, right at the edges of what must be a very ambitious bruise. Suddenly it's hard to swallow because her heart is fluttering its wings right in her throat and she's left incredibly aware of the space – or rather, lack of it – between them.

"It's just a bump Oliver."

… which is probably why her voice comes out so strange. Just a little breathy, just a little choked.

Or maybe it's the fact that his hand falls on her shoulder and he drags his palm down her arm, as if it could never occur to him to do anything different with it.

Digg clears his throat, the sound startling them out of their little bubble. And it would be funny, how both of them turn to look at him with equally surprised looks on their faces, as if they had forgotten all about the other people in the room. It __would__ be funny, Digg thinks with a touch of wistfulness, if he didn't know exactly how stubborn they both could be. ( _ _there is nothing funny however, about how Oliver's hand lingers for a tiny fraction on that space where Felicity's arms was, before she took a hurried step back, untangling herself from Oliver's personal bubble__ )

"We'll have to get a security detail on Laurel too," Digg reminds them, as if they'd just been talking about it. "It's not likely it'll put a dent on her momentum, but this is dangerous."

His impassive face is a blessing, but Roy is far less subtle with that knowing smirk he sends their way.

"Can she use all this in a courtroom?" Oliver asks, looking at Felicity again.

"Yeah sure. She can say she has a source inside his company. Or, better yet - I'll just send her an untraceable email with all the files, that way she won't have to lie about it."

"Steelgate will run." Roy states flatly, distain coloring his voice. "There's no way a guy like that ends up in prison. They never do."

Felicity scoffs. "He'll try."

All three of them turn to look at her with different degrees of speculation on their faces. Felicity just shrugs trying to look nonchalant, but not trying that hard, honestly. She knows just by the way Oliver looks at her, with that small expectant turn of his lips that gentles the angles of his face, that she's not being particularly subtle about how satisfied she is with herself.

"He __will__ try to run," Felicity says slowly, looking at each of them in turn. "But he won't have anywhere to run __to__. And he may have enough money to buy a small country right now, but… I can change that."

Oliver, Digg and Roy exchange brief looks and then they turn to her and nod almost at the same time. Felicity chucks the empty cartoon in the trash and wiggles her fingers.

Time to get to work.


	3. Chapter 3

2.

 _"if you were to kiss me,_  
 _right here, right now,_  
 _my lips would taste like lemon and honey_  
 _and uncertainty_  
 _and love"_

 _oh, you are all of the stars' by ffalling-through-clouds_

 _o_

It's a strange thing, watching her work. She possesses the kind of concentration and iron discipline that Oliver's has had to learn through literal pains of hell. But for Felicity, it's innate. She is made this way, it's who she is. She sits on that chair and rips into whatever she has to with a single-mindedness that would be chilling, if he didn't know her as well as he does.

She resurfaces to say goodnight to Digg and Roy, though neither bats an eye when she does so in her ' _I'm coding_ ' voice. They've been talking around her for a while but she's so deep in whatever it is she does that she's hardly derailed for more than some hot coffee and the occasional 2% brain-powered answer they might need from her. They all know better than to interrupt anyway.

Now she's leaning against the back of her chair, swinging from side to side a little bit as she reads from her tablet. The screens behind her are all active, multiple windows of data scurrying through, things Oliver knows he won't understand unless she explains them for him the way she might to a five year old. She's so focused on whatever she's reading that she's completely unaware of her surroundings even as he comes close enough to stand right in front of her desk. There is a part of him that wants to be annoyed at her for being so completely lost in her natural habitat, holding on to that tablet like it's a lifeline, free hand close to her chin, thumb annoying the cuticles of her forefinger as she reads on.

It's not annoyance that has him stopping and studying her though.

Oliver makes a bet with himself: will this finally be the time that she startles so much that she'll drop that tablet.

He knows he'll lose. There's a snowflake's chance in hell that Felicity Smoak will drop a piece of tech she holds that dear.

"Hey."

Felicity inhales sharply, and holds her tablet that much closer to her chest even though she jumps in her seat as a full-bodied shiver rip through her. And yes, maybe that is a little funny.

The glare she gives him a fraction later: less so.

"You know, sometimes I think that you guys enjoy how I yelp and that is why you're all ninja around me."

A small, genuine smile softens his face. "Sometimes?"

"Cute. One of these days, I'm gonna get creative and make _you_ jump like a ten year old kid, and then where will we be?"

"Approaching the apocalypse, probably." Oliver says, daring a smile as he walks around her desk.

Felicity's narrowed eyes follow him.

"Was that a challenge? Cause it sounded like a challenge. I'd say it's a challenge."

Oliver put his one free hand up, palm facing her, disarmed.

"The last thing I need is a prank war with you." He says, meaning every syllable. Felicity shakes her ponytail off her shoulder, turning her nose up at him a little bit.

"Wise choice," she says drily, though she can't hold it forever and finally a smile breaks through. When she looks at him her eyes are bright with amusement and a hint of mischief. "A prank war sounds all kinds of fun though. I can just imagine your face."

Oliver sobers up immediately, just a little bit tense, and she laughs at him. The sounds shivers over his skin, raising goosebumps and it's nice. It's… yeah. He really doesn't want that thought following him though, probably because Felicity already has him crawling up the wall without even trying. He doesn't know what would happen if she actually did try.

"Peace offering." He says instead as sits down on the chair close to hers, holding out a steaming mug. Felicity takes it ( _that tiny moment when her fingers brush his registers with annoying clarity_ ), though from the look on her face, she's not very enthused.

"I'm not sure I can take anymore caffeine tonight." She tells him, lips pursing in a pout that makes the word 'adorable' curl around his thoughts with the softness of a purring cat.

"It's herbal tea," Oliver explains.

"Oh. Okay. Thanks."

She wraps her hands around the mug and brings it close to her face, blows a bit on it, to cool it down before she dares a sip.

Oliver watches.

She's dressed all in black tonight – a rare sight. Usually she's a burst of fresh colors.

And _skin_.

Summer comes with a lot of Felicity's skin showing, apparently. Dresses with strategic cut-outs that make his throat feel dry. Pleated short skirts that flirt with the creamy skin of her thighs. Loose tops held up by dangerously fragile-looking straps – like the one she's wearing _right now_ . He hadn't noticed before, but now that her leather jacket has been discarded somewhere and the thin black hoodie she had underneath hangs off the back of her chair, Oliver notices everything. From it's dark flowery prints and how smooth it looks, to how it leaves the arch of her round shoulders bare.

Felicity leans forward a bit to tinker with the keyboard, concentrated on the screens in front of her, and Oliver finds his eyes drawn to the nape of her neck, tracing the dip of her spine; following the movement of the smooth expanse of skin between her shoulder blades. A wave of heat slams into him like a high summer midday sun in , leaving Oliver struggling for a full breath for a moment there. He licks his dry lips and drags his eyes away. He expels a long, slow breath and gulps down with difficulty, caught completely off guard by how immediate her presence is, how _warm_ her skin looks even in the harsh white light of the foundry.

She looks like she's dipped in gold sometimes. When _did_ she get a tan?

His eyes immediately fly up to her throat, slide along her collarbones. The missing tan-lines tell an interesting story. The image that burns behind his eyelids, alive and vivid, makes his mouth water.

He blinks fast and looks down again, rubbing his thumb on the palm of his other hand in soothing circles.

 _Jesus!_

But then Oliver catches sight of her feet and he has to bite back a grin. Because of course. _Of course_ she's wearing fire-red socks spotted with neon-green polka dots. This is _Felicity_.

Her sneakers have been discarded under the table and he watches her toes curl in every now and then, wonders what color her toenails are today. Probably white.

Felicity has patterns. About what shoes she wears, which skirt and different combinations with the many shades of her lipsticks. The most unpredictable thing about her is the shade of her nail polish. It's a guessing game Oliver likes to play in his head every day before he meets her. It's not really about her mood, though sometimes it matches. More than once he's been curious to ask but hasn't dared.

Her fingernails are painted bold red today. They have been for a few days now – though one of them is always painted white – which is why he thinks her toes are white too. Yesterday it was her pinkie, today it's her ring finger.

Oliver's eyes follow the arch of her palm to her wrist.

She has such tiny hands, really. The bone structure of her fingers is so fine that it reminds him of the wings of a bird.

The errant thought of what those red-tipped fingers would look like scratching down his chest is so bright that he can see the very image flashing in front of his eyes and it shocks Oliver into himself almost as much as her eyes on him do.

He clears his throat, straightens in his seat. Open and closes his mouth before he blurts out the first thing that comes to mind. ( _did she notice him staring_?)

"Any progress from Steelgate's accounts?"

Felicity tilts her chin towards her screens.

"Decrypting as we speak. Transferring the money out won't be a problem but the Cayman's banking system has surprisingly complex security. Which is not that surprising, when you stop to think about it, considering how many dubious people hide their money there, but anyway. That'll take a while."

She brings the cup close, breathes in the fresh scent of lemon and herbs coming from the cup and sighs. He knew she'd like it.

A small smile curves one corner of his lips up. "You mean you can't do _everything_ in under three minutes?"

There's enough genuine feeling behind that tease, as if it's never occurred to him that there are things with computers that she actually _can't_ do, to make Felicity smile.

"No. Sadly, I can't. Though it would be sadder if I _could_." She adds after a moment of thought. "I mean, I like a quickie as much as anyone, but every once in awhile a girl needs a proper challenge. "[13]

Oliver feels his eyebrows reaching for his hairline just about at the same time as Felicity catches up with the words that just came out of her mouth… and almost chokes on her sip of tea. Oliver doesn't even realize that he's staring at her dead in the eye without blinking, instead of just looking away or continuing the conversation as if he hadn't noticed her slip. But the image she just shoved in his head is sort of trapped in a loop there and he has to breathe through his mouth all of a sudden. He _does_ notice her pink cheeks and the flush on her sternum though.

"Hacking wise, I mean," Felicity corrects with a wince. "The quickie… thing. That is what I… meant. Moving on!"

He knows what she means. What's he's wondering is actually how far that blush goes beneath the V neckline of her top. It does make him smile though, because god, there really is nobody else like her, is there?

"You know I've always meant to ask you," he starts, changing the subject as if she'd said nothing out of the ordinary – which, all things considered, she hadn't. "Why were you in IT?"

The question seems so random that it distracts her out of her momentary embarrassment. She gives him the tiniest frown, confused.

"What do you mean?" She sounds perfectly normal, but Oliver doesn't miss the twitch of her fingers.

He's always considered it one of the most obvious things about her, once he got an idea of what she was capable of. Until now, it never really seemed like the kind of thing he could just ask.

Oliver never ' _just asks_ ' anything to anyone. That would mean giving people the opportunity to ask things back, and Oliver has too many secrets to be comfortable with that.

But now… the foundry is so quiet, it's only the two of them and computers running and she's looking at him with a tired face and sharp eyes, face glowing in the blue light of her computer screens as she leans towards him just a little bit. She looks beautiful and just for a moment tonight he thought, frantically, that she would never breath again and he _wants_ to.

He wants to know.

He _wants_ – and it's stronger than the dread of being wanted back.

But he lays his reasoning calmly, with the same self-evident tone that his thoughts have in his head.

"You graduated MIT with a Master's Degree at twenty-one." Oliver starts. "You can shadow government agencies, hack into satellites and break through cyber security that everyone thought was impossible - and you never even bat an eye."

Felicity smiles at him, a more natural rosy tinge staining her cheeks this time and Oliver leans forward, elbows on his knees, looking at her as openly as he dares.

"So far, the only thing you couldn't hack into…" Oliver's voice fades just a tiny bit, and once it becomes clear that he's not going to continue, Felicity finishes for him.

"Merlyn Global."

She says it quietly, all soft voice and gentle eyes. The whole experience rushes between them, an unexpected floodgate of hurt, but Oliver doesn't look away. He can still smell the heavy dust in the air, still see Tommy lying there in the semidarkness, bleeding out. Dying.

The moment sinks its steel claws into him and it feels as if he's back there, buried alive under rubble and wanting to die, his whole body tense, his mind screaming at him.

"Oliver?"

He blinks furiously, eyes finding Felicity's face through the blur. He takes in a harsh breath and sees her hand move, as if to reach him, but then she draws hit back, curls her fingers in her palm and swallows thickly.

She looks so scared…

Ultimately that's what breaks him out the mire of his own thoughts.

"Yeah, Merlyn Global," Oliver says as he clears his throat, trying to swallow down his heart and focus on _this_ moment instead. Trying to hold on to it, to her face and how soft her skin looks and the golden halo of her hair around her face. ( _he remembers what they say about drowning men, but he can't help it. Maybe that's why he doesn't dare touch her nine times out of ten_ )

He was talking about Felicity. Trying to learn something about her. Something important. That's what they were doing.

She waits for him, face set into forced nonchalance, though he can see the whisper of trepidation just beneath that thin veneer. Oliver tries to smile, tries to come back here again, to where it's safe. To where _she_ is.

"I may have been the worst CEO in history," Oliver points out, earning himself a tremulous smile. There, that already feels better. "But even _I_ know you're too good for just IT."

"You settled." He says it simply. He'd rather not point out right now that it feels more like she was trying to hide. "Why?"

Oliver makes sure to speak the words as softly as he is capable of, but he sees it in her eyes, when contemplation turns to trepidation. He has no right to ask for secrets really, but for the first time in a long time he wants to know someone else's enough to be willing to risk his own.

It doesn't feel like a question to Felicity either, not really. It's more like an invitation. He's been asking questions like this more often than not these past few months. Exchanging them for unexpected little tidbits of his own: random confessions that always freeze her steps. The first time he had to hunt by himself. The first storm he had to weather in the Island. That one time that he got caught in his own snare. That other time that he crashed a car and send the girl he was with to the hospital. Secrets he opens for her almost carelessly, like envelopes ( _she knows better than to believe that_ ) when it's quiet and they're just talking.

In turn he asks her things. Questions that only she can answer; questions that mean he'd have to get to know her. That he wants to.

Felicity tries really hard not to think much about why.

Usually she fails.

"I wanted something quiet for a while." Felicity finally says.

There's a lot to be understood in that sentence. She waits to see what he will get from it.

His smile is tiny and it softens his whole face into a look of warm affection. It makes Felicity want to hold on to something solid before she decides to take a leap and ends up breaking her neck.

"Something boring?" Oliver asks around that smile.

She knows what he's thinking about. She remembers standing in his rundown lair and agreeing to one job, and one only.

It hasn't even been two years since she'd been so desperate for boring and normal. It feels like it's been a lifetime.

"Kinda like that, yes."

She mirrors him, unconsciously perhaps, her voice lowering as his does. Bringing each other closer, focusing attention solely on the other, everything else fading at the edges, like the world through foggy glass.

They sit with barely a foot between them and stare, as silence takes a life and heaviness of its own with all the words unsaid.

Oliver feels his heart speed up a little. These moments of quiet feel so breakable to him, and completely overwhelming at the same time. Any wrong move and they'd be over, so he deals with them the only way he knows how: with exceptional stillness – feeling as if, if he moves too fast, he'll startle her. ( _Felicity, in the privacy of her mind thinks he's rather afraid of startling himself, but really, it's hard to tell with of them is more on edge_ ). But at the same time, this breathing quiet between them feels like tiptoeing on the edge of a downwards slide: something inevitable and huge that they both seem to be aware of, one way or another.

Right now though, they're just two friends talking. He likes this about them: that they talk. The more he does, the easier it gets. And the things he finds out about her, little corners of her he never knew, are always fascinating.

"Had you done any of this before? The hacking, I mean?"

"Yeah," she says it like it's obvious, but to him it isn't. "I mean, you can't do the things I do from just knowing theory. _Obviously_ , you have to know computer science theory and have cyber-tech knowledge, but my kind of skills… I taught those to myself."

There is a strange look on his face, a clash between the deep contemplation in his eyes that that small amused tilt of his lips. A moment later she learns why.

"I bet some of that involved hacking into places where you really shouldn't have been hacking," Oliver says, leaning forward just a little bit.

Felicity tilts her head at him. Playful, but not quite. He's fishing. Which is odd because Oliver generally doesn't fis for answers. A moment later it comes to her - there's no way he didn't notice her withdrawal. And this – this is him trying to lighten things a bit. It's not really that strange that it takes her a full five seconds to figure it out. This is a new thing, for him.

It makes her want to reach over, take his hand, touch his face. Maybe just a little bit. To say 'thank you'. To say 'I really like you when you try to be goofy for me'. And, more frightening still, to say 'please.'

She's such a liar. Doesn't matter what she'd say; she just wants to touch him.

"Among others," Felicity admits, fingers curling around the mug he gave her, leeching its warmth. Her smiles falls as she contemplates how much to tell him, if at all. A part of her has been wondering for years how it would feel to just tell _someone_. And now… she's in the place she feels safest, with one of the people she…

With _Oliver_ …

She starts slowly, still unsure. Just a bit unsteady. Despite that, she meets his eyes without hesitation.

"It was different for me, back then. _I_ was different. I didn't really know my limits and I _wanted_ to. Turns out, my limits stretched quite a bit…" Felicity sighs heavily, leans back in her chair and turns it around to fully face him, rueful regret on her face. "I made a mistake. Someone else paid for it."

She doesn't have to say anything more than that. Understanding settles on his features almost immediately and he lets her see it all unfold: how surprised he is to find that she too knows what it means to be reckless at the expense of someone else, before compassion deepens his eyes. It makes Felicity's ribs loosen just a bit, unclenching from the echo of an old hurt. Her heart's still drumming against her breastbone though, anxious and surprised at the same time that she really did speak the words. She said it out loud, and to him. She's never spoken of this to anyone and it feels frightening. It's scary to open up and let light shine on old hurts, but it's a relief too. She knows Oliver. She knows he doesn't really judge people's past mistakes ( _nobody's judgment is ever going to be as harsh as her own, really_ ). And the understanding she finds, after such heart-stopping fear, it's like a warm water down her spine.

 _Lovely._

Felicity doesn't need forgiveness. Nobody can give that to her. But feeling safe enough to trust someone with the parts of her that hurt most is something she hasn't done in a long time.

And the way he looks at her right then, that is a look that makes Felicity want to forget how dangerous the line she is toeing really is.

"Felicity, whatever happened, I'm sorry you had to go through it," his voice is so gentle it makes her feel warm. "But I'm also glad that you made it to the other side, because I'm glad to know you.[14]"

"Yeah, me too," she says after a few moments. And then blinks fast a couple of times, shakes her head a little. "That _you_ made it through, I mean. Not me. Cause I'm glad to know you too."

Felicity is grateful when her computer beeps. Grateful to have an excuse to look away from him, because when he goes all blue eyes and open-faced at her like that, she hardly knows what to do with him.

… Or with herself.

"Decryption complete," she says with a sigh. "Now I know what I'm looking at, and I can find a way in."

She hears Oliver get up and step up close to her side, hoovering.

"You can do that tomorrow," he tells her as his hand brushes her shoulder, fingertips just a breath away from the bare skin of her collarbone.

He never touches her bare skin. It has always felt deliberate, somehow.

"It's 3 am, Felicity, and you were hurt tonight too. You need to rest. All this will be right here after you get 8 hours of sleep."

"It was a _bump_ ," she insists, mulishly. "And besides, it's Sunday tomorrow. I'll sleep in."

Though she has no idea why she's arguing really. She's so tired she might just fall asleep on the keyboard and she's not doing that anymore because the last time that happened, Felicity had ended up in _his_ cot, wrapped in _his_ blanket. Which explained why she woke wrapped in his scent, wet and aching, vivid dreams she couldn't shake off pressing hotly against her eyelids and between her thighs.

Yeah, a fat big _nope_ to that one. That's not happening again. Ever.

What _is_ happening is his thumb tracing small circles on her shoulder.

That's… a change too. He's so still when he touches her, usually. But not always. And not now. The motion is almost hypnotizing, but Felicity catches herself before she actually leans in to it.

" _Felicity_."

Yup, that's it. Her name. Insistent, just like that.

' _Get up Felicity_.' ' _Stop stalling, Felicity_.'

She rolls her eyes.

"Ok, ok."

She turns her systems off and gets up. It takes Oliver just a moment too long to remember to get out of her way, but he takes a hasty step back once he realizes they're almost chest to chest.

He's in rare form tonight, she thinks trying to find that last thread of exasperation that usually saves her.

"Want me to drive you?"

Felicity shakes her head. "I have my mini parked outside."

Oliver frowns at that. "I'd still feel better if I drove you. Your hea…"

She turns to face him, determined.

"My head is fine. You _know_ it's fine. I'm perfectly able of getting myself home." But as she talks she frowns, and then her face softens just a little bit. "Are you staying here again?"

She doesn't even pretend not to know that he's been bunking in here for weeks. Oliver doesn't pretend it's not true, in turn. The only answer he gives is a shrug.

He hasn't set foot in the mansion since that night and they both know it.

She edges a bit closer, hesitates a fraction before asking. "Are you still thinking about selling the Mansion?"

Oliver's one shoulder shrug feels a bit helpless. Maybe it's just the momentary pained look on his face.

"I wanted to talk to Thea about it before I decide anything though. She hasn't been answering my calls lately."

Felicity tilts her head a bit to the side, her open face easy for him to read. They look at each other in complete recognition and it feels like he can snatch her silent offer to track his sister down right out of her thoughts.

Oliver shakes her head minutely. His palm brushing against her forearm briefly says 'thank you anyway'.

Felicity sighs, nods. The look she gives him after is resolved, almost a challenge.

"Fine. For _tonight_. But tomorrow, you and I are going shopping."

She almost cracks a smile at his adorably confused face.

"What?"

" _We_ are going to buy a bed." She tells him as she starts climbing the stairs, and almost misses a step for how fast she turns. Oliver's steadying hand on her forearm is faster than her oncoming babble. Or maybe it just puts a dent on her momentum for a moment.

But just for a moment.

"I mean buy a bed for _you_. To sleep in. Here. That's what I meant."

The mental picture of shopping for a bed makes him a bit slower – which is why it takes him longer than usual to take his hand back from where it was wrapped around her forearm.

"Felicity…"

"Nope. No buts. If you're determined to sleep here then at least you should be comfortable."

She turns the lights off and locks the door of the foundry, and then turns to him. That glint in her eyes tells Oliver he has already lost the battle.

It's not like he was fighting that hard against it anyway.

"You may have been stranded in the wild for who knows how long, but you don't have to live with the bare essentials anymore, Oliver. And a comfortable bed is important." She blinks about three times in rapid succession and winces at her choice of words, but doesn't correct herself even though her cheeks are starting to stain pink.

Oliver takes a deep slow breath.

"Okay."

The surprise at his quick capitulation shows on Felicity's face briefly, and Oliver wonders if he really is that difficult to deal with. The thought makes his spine curve just a little bit, shoulders feeling heavier. It makes him want to step back from her.

But then her face breaks out into wide smile, and she bobs on the balls of her feet, her enthusiasm lighting her up like a beacon.

He could kiss her right then and there. He wants to.

The thought is insistent, making his palms itch to feel the softness of her cheeks, to feel how _warm_ she really is. Alive… He's acutely aware of how close they're standing and feels himself tipping forward, drawn to her in a moment that stretches on like hot rubber and traps him in.

In that one moment the need to know if her lips are exactly as soft as they look is more overwhelming than anything else. Than logic or sanity or all the thousand reasons he has given himself for _not_ kissing her. Stronger than the lurking danger of the two of them together, always reminding him he is too good at violence and she is too good at forgiving… because maybe he can be that person for whom forgiveness is worth it. And even though his hands have forgotten what tenderness is, Oliver knows he would be nothing else for her, because most times when she looks at him, all he wants to do is to fall on his knees. Doubt never stops gnawing at him, because every time he's held something beautiful in his hands, it has shattered right between his palms, fresh rosebuds crumbling between his fingers like bruises. But Felicity's so strong though. And so close…

He sees her smile fall, how her eyes widen ever so slightly. He knows the precise moment when she stops breathing, sees it getting trapped in her throat as she tries to gulp it down. Sees her tongue peek between her lips when she wets them, pink and wet and knows, right in that moment and with frightening clarity, that she is going to ruin him for all other kisses. That he might spend his whole life trying to forget her name and failing, and it doesn't matter. It doesn't. It's worth it.

Her eyes are dark and her lids low and she's looking at his lips… and it would be so _easy_. Just an inch. He knows how. His heart drumming against his chest reminds him of it.

The stickiness of his sweaty palms reminds him of something else.

This is Felicity, and she is beautiful and vibrant. Alive in ways Oliver has forgotten how to be, and doesn't even know if he'll ever remember… and if he hurts her, it might just kill him[15].

Felicity blinks fast against the wait that stretches on too long. ( _against the fact that she knows exactly when his intent changes – sees it in his face. These are things about Oliver Queen she knows that she shouldn't ever have glimpsed. But she has, and it_ hurts.) The breathless moment ends and in that same heartbeat, awareness solidifies in her, heavy like a black stone falling[16], that she had been waiting for Oliver Queen to kiss her.

And he hadn't.

Felicity straightens, surprised at herself and a little afraid. A lot confused. ( _There's time_ _later, for the hurt. That comes later. That's what she tells herself anyway_ ) Awkwardness burns at the back of her neck. Embarrassment crawls up her spine and heats her cheeks. She feels like her head is going to explode and all she wants is to melt right into a puddle and disappear through the cracks of the asphalt, right here in the middle of the Glades.

 _You keep telling yourself you're not going down there, but where are you exactly?_

The truth of it mocks her.

All that screeches to a stop when she looks him in the eye, and finds him staring back with panic lighting up his eyes. He's barely drawing breath even through slightly parted lips.

It's the most afraid she's seen him.

 _Oh, Oliver…_

Her eyes prickle, but Felicity grits her teeth against that. So not the time for tears right now.

Felicity forces herself to curve her lips up. It's tremulous at best.

"Goodnight Oliver."

Her voice comes out thick and laden with emotions but it's too late to do anything about that. She hates it. It's not his fault she's slipped and fallen straight into stupidity tonight. And now he's gonna feel guilty about that too.

"Wait! Felicity!"

She's barely turned away from him but the way he says her name makes him sound so urgent. Felicity takes a deep breath and tries to find what's left of her calm before she turns. She's not going to be that girl, damn it! She _refuses_ to be. He doesn't owe her anything and she most certainly doesn't owe _him_ anything.

She looks at him and the naked, frantic desperation she finds on his face almost rocks her back to her heels. He gulps heavily, opens and closes his mouth a couple of times. He looks anxious and helpless, his eyes screaming 'I'm sorry' to her and Felicity feels her heart crack just a little bit along familiar paths. The answer comes to her whispered from that place where she shoves all uncomfortable truths she can't deal with, on a daily basis. It comes to her clear as a bell and shakes uncomfortableness loose.

It doesn't matter in the face of this.

She takes his hand – it stills him, completely – and leans in. Pulls him down just a little bit, far enough for her to kiss his cheek. The shaky breath he lets out moves the tiny strands of hair close to her ear and raises goosebumps along her throat. ( _just when she least expects it, just when she's ready to be done, she feels his hand shake - and clearly, she doesn't understand anything anymore_ )

Felicity straightens. The quiet smile on her face is more honest this time. The stunned look on his remains.

"I'll see you tomorrow. Ok?"

His fingers twitch around hers, tightening their hold before he lets her go. She follows his Adam's apple when he swallows that down with such difficulty. He says 'okay' back, a choked word that makes her run her thumb along his scarred knuckles. He hasn't even blinked once.

He open's her Mini's door for her, closes it after she's in. When she's backing out of the parking space, Felicity chances a look into her rearview mirror. He's still there as she left him.

There is a geyser waiting to explode in her mind, all those things that she's so good at not thinking about, but she gives herself time.

 _Wait till you're home_. _Wait_ – for steady ground beneath her feet. A familiar environment. Somewhere safe where she can break down.

Not that it would make much of a difference anyway.


	4. Chapter 4

3.

 _What a wild dilemma, how to make it to the stars_  
 _on a highway slick with fear."_

 _Joy Harjo, "Hold Up," 'How We Became Human'_

 _o_

By the time Felicity gets home she's exhausted. And, though all she wants is to hug her pillow, there is a whole torrent of thoughts lurking in the back of her head and she knows, just from the way they press against her frontal lobe, that despite her exhaustion there is not going to be any easy sleep tonight.

She closes the door behind herself, takes off her jacket, hangs it. Toes off her shoes and braces her palms on the small coffee table near the entrance. Leans her weight on them, takes a deep breath. Releases it steadily, trying to stay calm.

Felicity knows how to survive. She knows how to move past things that feel like they're going to overwhelm and swallow her whole life away. She knew from early on that she'd have to grow thick skin to survive this underground world she'd gotten entangled in. She knew the dangers of it, faced them all with clear eyes and a made up mind.

She knew the dangers of Oliver Queen, too. Remembers them still. ( _Never more clearly than right now, actually, and isn't that just the kind of ironic twist she's always scowled at_.)

Around him are the harshest of lines she's ever drawn, the most definite 'don't's. And it's fine really, because she is a survivor in her own way and she's always known not to call things by a name they haven't earned.

Felicity moves deeper into her apartment with sluggish steps, doesn't even bother with the lights as she goes straight to her room, shedding her clothes as she goes and shimmying into the flannel pajamas that she'd thrown on the bed that morning.

It's really not that complicated, she tells herself as she squishes the toothpaste on the brush a little too aggressively and swears under her breath when too much of it gets out. Ugh, when will this day end?

He is Oliver Queen: her partner, her teammate and she cares about him, of course she does. He is stubborn and relentless and arrogant to the point of narcissism sometimes. He is a thousand other things that make her want to hurl things at his head every other day, on multiple occasions. And Felicity doesn't know if she's ever met, or even if she ever will meet, anyone with a heart like his. Anyone who loves more fiercely. He's so painfully flawed and she's watched him day after day choose to be better and she…

She does _care_ about him obviously.

 _Obviously…_

She cares about Digg too. Roy. Sara. They're a team, they all love and care for each other – they have been through hell together and it's normal to feel intensely about the people that got her through it. Oliver is one of those people. She knows for a fact he feels the same about her and Digg, too.

But that's it. _That is it_. It _must_ be.

Felicity sighs and puts the hand holding the toothbrush down and starts at the bright white foam at the edges with betrayal it hasn't earned. She has no idea where else to direct it though.

She's fought so hard for it to be just that. To keep herself firmly planted in the real. In what is possible; and not even _glance_ at what is not. Oliver Queen isn't one to be made to stay anywhere he doesn't want to, but he probably doesn't know that Felicity is just as good as him at surviving. Sometimes you have to have priorities in order to get through the day. You have to know which things matter and which don't ( _and which_ _can't!_ ). You _have_ to; you can't have two full time jobs around people you feel emotionally compromised about. That simply can't be a thing. It would just get in the way. Which is why you push some things down in cavernous deep places where they can't echo very loudly. And keep them there, because if you were to look at them too closely… god it would be so exhausting.

And it's been okay like that for the longest time. It's been almost easy really. Their lives have been so complicated and fast-paced for so long that ignoring the details and focusing only on how to get through tomorrow and the next day, and the day after that, have been a rule to live by.

 _Not anymore_ , Felicity thinks furiously as she goes back to brushing her teeth, this time with a little more enthusiasm than usual, a frown furrowing her brow to worrying degrees.

Things have changed.

Now it's all right in her face. The very things that she's spent such stupid amount of energy denying are right there staring back at her and… and it was supposed to be _unthinkable, damn it_!

Until it wasn't.

She's worked so hard to make the two of them a perfectly ridiculous thought in her head ( _how much it had hurt when she dared think they weren't, and he proved her wrong spectacularly, had helped… a lot_ ) But then he goes and shatters it with a small smile and knowing eyes and all the _leaning_ … and there is a not-so-small, angry part of Felicity that wishes she could be angry about it, but the truth is she is just so… so _confused_!

Oliver Queen is confusing. His face is stupid, and so are his blue eyes - and his shaking hands most of all!

Just what the hell is he doing anyway?

Felicity splashes cold water on her face over and over, trying to find some even ground. She looks up at her reflection in the bathroom mirror and finds wide, frantic eyes staring back. Her pulse is fluttering beneath her skin. And just like that, as she washes her face, the day crashes down around her, curving her shoulders in.

God, she's so tired. Just thinking about this is exhausting her. A car crash is nothing compared to this. Every danger she's faced feels like it pales in comparison to this.

Because Oliver, he is a difficult person to trust with tender things. He's a self-centered, self-motivated man - doesn't mean he is a bad man. Felicity knows better than most that he is the farthest thing from it. He's a good man who could be so much more if he just allowed himself to be… but Oliver has a hard time accounting for the feelings of others unless they affect him in some way. And he's so afraid. Felicity knows better than to think that could change without _him_ wanting it to. Those five years are a huge grave and he insists on facing the dead things that crawl out of it alone. His guilt, that shame that burns beneath the surface, they're are a wall between him and anyone who wants to get close to him. That more than anything - more than their lives and the complications of emotional attachments - have kept Felicity at a distance. She has a lot of potholes and empty spaces inside her where insecurities echo for days, but she knows she deserves better than half-truths and secrets. She knows it. She's _earned_ it.

And god knows it's not his fault, but it's still the truth: Oliver gets scared. He doesn't know how to lose – he spirals hard when he does, distorts the space around him.

He doesn't really think he can love without hurting; doesn't trust himself enough to try.

…He runs.

Felicity stops massaging her hydrating cream on the skin of her face, narrows her eyes at her reflection.

 _Coward!_

She groans, throws a towel at the mirror and gets out, turning the light off.

It doesn't change anything though. She _is_ a coward, isn't she? All those things, they are just excuses. The truth is far more ordinary: she's scared. She's freaking terrified, because this… the mere _thought_ of this makes her knees turn a bit to jelly.

And there it is, her soul's truth: Oliver Queen could really smash her heart to bits, couldn't he?

The thought stops her steps just as she's about to get into bed. Instead she sits heavily on the edge and lets her head fall in her hands helplessly. She's never admitted it so plainly before…

 _He really could… he probably will too._

But then she thinks of how he can say the most unexpected things and make her laugh. Or the look he gives her sometimes, unflinching and still, bracing for rejection to hit like a tidal wave as he confesses how it gets a lot colder in Russia in the winter but the tundra really is a beautiful sight; or the time it usually takes for most people to reach their pain thresholds before they pass out. Felicity thinks of the slow way he's been trying to reach for her, giving up secrets like gifts, all trepidation and vulnerability, and she feels herself deflate.

It's too late at night for these kind of decisions, she tells herself as she reaches over to turn off the bedside lamp, plunging her room in darkness. She takes off her glasses and is just about to crawl beneath the covers when she remembers she hasn't grabbed the water from the kitchen. She very seriously considers leaving it - her limbs feeling almost numb with exhaustion, her soft bed swallowing her, but she knows better. She will wake up, like always does, thirsty in the middle of the night and if she has to walk all the way to her kitchen, she won't fall asleep again.

With a groan, Felicity rolls out of bed and drags her feet to the kitchen. The low-key headache she'd had all day is starting to act up and it makes her wince.

And maybe that is why she doesn't see it sooner.

Or maybe because she didn't take her glasses or turn on the light at all – why didn't she do that? But then again, Felicity knows her apartment like the back of her hand and doesn't need light to navigate it.

But not tonight will prove to be different, in about 3.5 seconds.

It's just a glance really, fleeting in the dark. For a fraction of a moment she thinks it's her mind playing tricks on her, but it still chills her blood. She's been working against people that kill in the dark too long to give shadows the benefit of the doubt. Her heart jumps in her throat, beating madly, jolting her body into hyper-awareness so violently she shakes. Bitterness floods her mouth.

The knives on the counter are closer than the small automatic piece taped beneath the living room coffee-table, or the taser in her bag. The problem is that Felicity doesn't know how to use a knife very efficiently. But there's no time to reach the gun either.

She gives up on nonchalance and lunges for the counter. Her fingertips brush it just when she feels the steel hold of a hand fisting her ponytail, yanking her back. Tears sting her eyes, her yelp strangled in her throat as her body shifts trajectory almost without Felicity feeling it. It's the sheer weightlessness of falling she feels, before the side of her head explodes in pain and then goes numb.

What happens is that her head is slammed against the adjoined wall of her kitchen and the whiplash of the hit is so strong that her head bounces off it, but Felicity barely feels that one. She only feels her heart thundering and the mass of her attacker in looming as she does what Sara once told her and goes for the face. She scratches her nails down deep, blindly. Feels the wetness of thick blood beneath her nails and the hold of her attacker loosening. Kicks her knee up, shoves her elbows down aiming for his sides, trying to break free of it completely.

She does.

She runs. Or tries to. Dives for the coffee-table.

She is _not_ giving in without a fight.

She's almost there when she hears the steps from her left. Maybe it's training that has her so aware, or maybe just adrenaline, but she can almost feel the hit coming it connects. Unfortunately, she isn't fast enough to avoid it.

A fist to the stomach has her doubling over for breath. Her body changes angle and for the second time that night she's flying, heart soaring in her throat before she crashes hard. The sting of her back, the way breath leaves her in a rush, it all registers far more sharply that the small coffee table crashing beneath her. When she feels her face being turned up, Felicity doesn't even feel it. She can't breathe.

But then she looks to the face of her attacker, and she is robbed of breath for an entirely different reason.

That's when the merciless stab on her side comes. Felicity can barely grunt at the sharp sting of it.

One time. Again.

She doesn't feel the third stab. Just her breath wheezing out, barely reaching her lungs, her senses fading. And darkness of a different kind closing in.

* * *

[3] This here refers to the feeling of dizziness, obviously, not the drug in Arrow!verse

[4] Gotta give credit for this one as soon as i find the link cause its not my expression

[5] Skyfall

[6] After Grace Murray Hopper (1906-1992), often deemed "The Queen of Code"

[7] Lord of War

[8] ;)

[10] Girl with the dragon tattoo

[11] Girl with the dragon tattoo.

[14] Adaptation of that line, from 'The Secret Origins of Felicity Smoak'

[15] Inspired by ' **yes & no / natalie wee**' (the poem at the beginning of the prologue) (certain phrases were taken verbatim out of it)

[16] 'Deathless'


	5. Chapter 5

_Our dried voices, when  
_ We whisper together  
Are quiet and meaningless  
As wind in dry grass  
Or rats' feet over broken glass  
In our dry cellar

 _T.S. Eliot_

Oliver jolts awake and for one short moment he doesn't know why. But then the phone rings again - a ridiculous song about china dolls in bullpens that used to make his eyebrow twitch in annoyance, ( _because there was no way to change it_!) - and he sprints from the bed before he's even fully aware of anything else.

It has to be past three in the morning. Why would she be calling?

A thousand scenarios, like doors banging open at the same time, whirlwind through Oliver's head and make his blood run cold as he crosses those three steps that separate his cot from the bench where he'd left his phone. ( _only one of them is not as bloody as the others and that one does not in fact scare Oliver any less_ )

"Felicity?"

Only silence answers him.

When he says her name the second time it's barely above a whisper. He listens intently, for anything, phone crammed so hard against his ear it almost hurts.

He's had Felicity's voice in his ear, guiding him, every night for more than two years. Being silent with him as they wait a target out. He knows the sound of her steady breathing, when she's biting her lip on the other side of the coms, counting back from three before she says anything, so that she doesn't distract him. He _knows_ what she sounds like. And yet, right now it feels as if he's never had her silence on the end of the line.

It doesn't matter. He's already moving.

Maybe it's his imagination. Maybe it really is her raspy breathing he hears. Oliver can't really tell. The rush of blood in his ears deafens him to anything but his heartbeat.

He doesn't bother to change out of his sweatpants – just throws on a T-shirt, socks and shoes, hides a glock in his jacket and pats it down to make sure his hidden knives are already there as he takes the stairs of the lair two by two. She's made it easy to access the app on his phone that tracks all their phones' locations. All Oliver has to do is click the smiley-face and it tells him Felicity is currently at home, the red dot that is supposed to be her phone, unmoving in her room.

Felicity's line is still open in the Bluetooth in his ear as he calls Digg through the other phone.

John picks up in the second ring.

"We have a situation," Oliver says without preamble."Felicity called me. The line's open, but she's not saying anything. I'm on my way to her place."

He can hear John get up and start to dress. "I'm calling Roy."

"Sara too." Oliver adds, the bike roaring to life and bursting forward like a bullet out of gun. It might be nothing, but it might be something and he's not taking any chances. "Tell her to send Laurel in the Lair in case we need someone manning the coms and tracing locations."

It's simple logic really, his brain reaches for it without his permission at all: just because Felicity's phone is in her apartment it doesn't mean is there too. …The thought makes Oliver feel like he is moments away from bursting out of his own skin and at the same time, as if he's moving like jello, despite the fact that he was zinging through traffic at 100 miles an hour.

"Copy that. Meet you there in ten. Keep the coms open." Jon says. And then, a bit more calmly. "And see that you get there in one piece, Oliver."

Oliver just grits his teeth, trapping words behind them. He focuses on driving, speeding through the city and trying to ignore the catalogue of all the horrible ways she could be bleeding right now, that his overactive brain is trying to shove at him.

He uses the emergency brake to stop the bike and feels the momentum of the fast deceleration trying to slam him forward. It's as much braking as parking and at this point Oliver doesn't much care.

Her windows are pitch black and it's not fucking reassuring in the least.

"Five minutes out." Digg reminds him quietly. Oliver doesn't answer. He feels his insides disappear and then come back filled with lead when he gently turns the handle of her front door - and it opens without the minimal resistance.

His breath leaves him in a rush. A familiar tension starts gathering along his muscles, coiling them like springs as he slips inside Felicity's home like a thief, as silent as the rest of the silvery shadows her house is swimming in. The signs of struggle are everywhere, they scream at him. He takes it all in in one quick, practiced glance: the dent on her kitchen's drywall, the mess that cuts a path right to the smashed coffee table in her living room. ( _He'd watched from her threshold, despondent but silent, as Digg taught her how to tape that tiny Smith & Wesson 9 mm on its underside two months ago_)

His nostrils flare with barely suppressed rage. ( _Beneath it, fear coils in tight_ )

The next slow breath he takes is deliberate, a grasp for the last strands of his calm. It becomes an exercise in cold-bloodedness to keep still and listen for movement.

Nothing comes back at him.

Everything in there is painted in different shades of grey - an illusion. The quiet feels like one too: like it's holding a secret tight within its breast. His heart thunders behind his own breastbone in answer. His senses adjust seamlessly, his whole body finding the familiar rhythm within the constraints of the high pressure. He'd palmed the glock the moment he stepped in, done so without even consciously thinking about it. It's cold metal makes his fingers twitch, but still as much an extension of his arm as a bow and arrow.

Silent steps take him through the living area, bent on checking everywhere.

He finds her in her room.

( _between one heartbeat and another, everything he's been holding back ever since he got that absent call slams into him like a battering ram and for a moment it's hard to breathe_ ).

She's on her own bed, limbs askew. There is zero chance of her falling asleep like that on her own: it's a horrible angle for her neck. She'll complain about it for days. ( _She will!_ ) Three darkening blotches stain her tank top around her abdomen and Oliver knows ( _knowledge like claws in the dark_ , _the shade of blood by any light, and knows that at night it looks as black as tar_.) The low glow from her phone give her face a bluish hue that makes her seem like she's three feet underwater. His fingers shake when he reaches for her, ( _please…please pleaseplea…)_ hand brushing a stray curl from her face ( _finds,_ feels _the immediate warmth of her cheek that, to someone who knows well the cold stillness of corpses, whispers fiercely 'alive, alive'_ ), searching for her pulse.

Her quick heartbeat sings beneath his fingers. The relief is a true uncoiling weight from his shoulders.

There are no dark puddles on the bed; there were none in the living room either. That too lets him breathe easier.

But he doesn't _know_ yet.

Oliver steps away to check the rest of her house for surprise lurkers. There's a whole hive buzzing under his skin and Oliver feels like he's fighting gravity every moment he spends making sure they are alone.

Once he's sure her apartment is empty and there's no assailant waiting to jump from the shadows and kill them both, Oliver narrows the distance between himself and Felicity faster than he's ever moved. He stops short on the edge of her bed to cup her face in both hands. ( _Not a single muscle in her face responds_.) Gently, almost afraid t really touch her, he feels her head, searching for the wound to match that cracking on her drywall.

There it is, the tender swell.

Oliver grits his teeth against the screaming rage that is starting to burn in his veins.

"Digg, I got her." He says instead, voice so rough it surprises even himself.

" _Thank god_." John's relief is so intense Oliver can perceive it by the tone of those two words alone. "Is she hurt?"

Gently, Oliver lifts her tank top to get a better look at her wounds. He has to swallow the lump in his throat to talk.

"Three puncture marks on her abdomen. She's unconscious." Felicity, unconscious. So still and silent. _Unnatural_. She moves and mumbles even in her sleep. "Her pulse is going a bit fast and… and she's a little too warm."

His relief dies the quickest of deaths: barely there to let him breathe before it vanishes.

This is too orchestrated. The whole thing feels like a set scene someone wanted him to walk on. The call, the phone, Felicity in her own bed.

 _What is this?_

Oliver sits down close to her, slips one arm under her shoulders and angles Felicity's head with the other so that it rests right at the crook of his neck, where he can feel her every breath against his skin. Summer has barely passed - its heat still lingers, but Oliver wraps her in the blanket he finds at the foot of the bed nonetheless. Once he's sure she won't be chilly ( _she hates being cold. The only thing she liked about going to Russia last year was the cute hat she bought_.) He sneaks his other arm beneath her knees and lifts her gently, trying to jostle her as little as possible.

"Apartment's clear, but I still want Sara and Roy to check the perimeter."

"Got it." It's Roy that answers him this time.

"Any hint to what we're looking for?" Sara asks, and the fact that she's out there watching out for them right now gives Oliver a little bit of calm he desperately needs right now.

It scratches at him, that he doesn't know the answer to her question.

"Anything that seems suspicious." Oliver says instead.

He hears it when Digg parks his car right outside Felicity's house. John opens the passenger door and Oliver gets in carefully, Felicity nestled close to his chest.

"Hospital?"

Oliver meets the other man's eyes in the mirror.

"Foundry is on the way. We stop there first."

Digg frowns, but doesn't hesitate or slow down. "What are you thinking?"

Oliver's thinking a thousand things. Peripheral thoughts keep brushing by him, feather light and shallow, as he keeps counting the beats of her heart, hand wrapped around her left wrist. ( _her pulse is strong, but erratic_ ). She feels warm… too warm? Oliver can't tell.

"I'm thinking doing our own bloodwork on her at the Foundry would be faster." Oliver says tightly, considering the options.

Digg's eyes when they meet his in the mirror are hard, his frown deep.

"Poison?"

Oliver grits his teeth, lips pressed into a thin line. His nod is as stiff as the line of his shoulders. He feels the car accelerate, slowly, but steadily. Digg drives smoother than he ever has and for once Oliver's grateful for the late hour, because the streets are so lifeless.

"Those island herbs would come in handy right about now." Digg suggests, voice tightly controlled.

"Yeah." He'd been thinking that too.

Those herbs kept him from dying of curare poisoning and vertigo overdose, among other things. They counteracted the effects of Tibetan pit viper poison.

' _More magical than a fairy godmother'_. That's what Felicity said about them.

They better be!

Oliver looks down Felicity's face against his shoulder. He carefully untangles her hair from the askew bun, smoothes the curls down, away from her face. He adjusts her head a bit higher on his shoulder to take away the strain from her neck… and the moment after feels stupid.

She's unconscious - she won't know!

Except she will, after.

She's so pale…

His fingers flex around her wrist. A fine tremor shakes them but Oliver refuses to acknowledge why and keeps counting.

 _It'll be fine._

He says that to himself over. Sometimes, in his head, the words come back to him, like an echo. Sometimes like a scream.

She's gonna be _fine_.

oOo

Felicity wakes up on the med-table of the lair, wrapped in her own green and blue blanket, choking on the ninth sip of the distilled island-herbs antitoxin that Oliver is carefully trying to pour down her throat.

He immediately sets the glass down, helping her turn her face to the side as she coughs. She flinches at the light ( _Dig moves immediately to turn off the ones right over her head_ ), bites her lip to trap a groan when she's forced to move.

With most of the lights off, her face is a play of shadows, but when Felicity turns to look at him, he can see the shaking panic etched in every line of her expression as clear as if she was screaming it. Her breathing picks up, fast and shallow and Oliver leans down just a little bit ( _enough to be close, to remind her she's safe, but not enough to for her to feel stifled_ ), one hand soothing a steady rhythm up and down her arm over the blanket.

"Hey, it's ok." Oliver says trying to keep his voice low and smooth. "You're ok. You're safe."

Felicity hisses and curls in a tighter ball, but her hand wraps around his wrist, nails digging in as she draws one sharp breath after another. She shakes her head just a little bit, blinking rapidly the way she does when she doesn't want to let tears fall, and Oliver reaches for her face with the hand she isn't sinking her nails into. He just means to untangle the loose curls falling in her eyes but then Felicity closes her eyes and leans in with an almost silent sob, using his palm as a pillow between her head and the med table, as a crinkle forms between her eyebrows.

She's trying so hard to just breathe. Oliver knows the feeling.

"Deep breath, and then hold it." He rends her, voice low enough for the words to stay trapped between them. He counts backwards from five for her ( _and_ _three… two… one_ …) the first time, and then exhales. Felicity does the same, eyes closed and eyebrows pulled tight in concentration.

He hasn't seen her hyperventilating like this ever since that night with Slade. They'd taken long deep breaths together then too, until their hearts stopped trying to hammer out of their chests.

It's about ten minutes before she can take a breath and actually have it fill her lungs. Once she can do that, she opens her eyes and blinks at him before squinting just a little bit, trying to see him clearly.

Oliver takes out her glasses from where he'd pocketed them earlier in her apartment. Her bottom lip shakes when he helps her put them on, before she bites it to make it stop.

"How…" her voice breaks. She doesn't have to finish the question.

Oliver licks his lips, hesitates. Doesn't really want to remind her of what happened.

"Whoever it was, called me from your phone, after. Left the line open."

Confusion clouds her face as she looks between him and John.

"We think you were injected with something." Digg adds.

Felicity's frowns deepens, her lips thin as she presses them together tighter. She tries to sit up and groans. Doesn't give up. John tells her not to move, but she just shakes her head at him, so he ends up helping her. The effort of sitting up robs her even of that small amount of color her face had gained since Oliver started feeding her the antitoxin.

Oliver grits his teeth harder, trapping the piling words behind them. This isn't about him. This is about Felicity doing whatever she has to do to feel in control of her surroundings again – Oliver has been on that table enough times to know that.

Doest really make it any easier to accept though.

He watches in silence as she unwraps the blanket from her shoulders and lifts up her tank top to look at the bandages John taped on her abdomen, where her shallow wounds are.

Her gaze is vacant when she looks up. The ripples of her shellshock travel from her to him, squeezing Oliver's lungs against a ribcage suddenly too small to accommodate them.

"We'll have your bloodwork in a few." John reassures her gently, pulling the blanket over her shoulders again and stepping back. Oliver hands her the glass of antitoxins, helps her wrap her hand around it. Neither of them steps too close, the distance between them – the space - a deliberate reassurance.

Felicity nods slowly, licks her lips.

Both Oliver and John wait a beat before asking what they want to know. Enough for Felicity to take a whiff off the clear liquid in the glass and scrunch up her nose.

"This smells awful." she says, her voice rough around the edges.

"It'll taste worse." Oliver warns. "You'll have to drink all of it."

Felicity purses her lips into a half-hearted moue, but takes a gulp anyway. Her whole face scrunches up and she smacks her lips as if she just took a gulp of lemon juice.

"Oh, that's gross." She groans, making a sour face. It's almost enough to make Oliver and Digg smile. Almost.

"How do you feel?" Oliver asks her. "Headache? Dizziness?"

Felicity takes a breath, winces. "Both."

Her hand reaches up to touch the side of her head. Oliver wraps his fingers around hers before she makes contact.

"You have a head wound." He explains, trying to focus on her and push his own feelings back. "Again. If you didn't have a concussion before, you certainly do now. As soon as you finish drinking the antitoxin, we're going to the Hospital."

She nods, and the fact that she doesn't protest tells Oliver more than her words ever could.

"Felicity…" John begins.

She shakes her head before his question is even out. "I don't know who it was. His face was covered."

Oliver's spine straightens. He tries to contain the itch beneath his skin. "So we're looking for a man."

Felicity's frown deepens.

"I think so. It's blurry, I don't really…" Felicity shakes her head as if to clear it, but it just makes it throb worse. She settles for taking another gulp of the antitoxin. It makes her eyes water and her stomach churn.

The hand wrapped around the glass shakes and Oliver takes it from her before she drops it.

"Oh god…" The words come out laced in a whimper, panic just at its heels. "I think I'm gonna throw up."

"Try not to." Oliver says urgently, just as Digg sets a deep bowl in her hands. The herbs need to stay in her system to counteract whatever she was injected with, otherwise it's all for nothing. Felicity grits her teeth, shakes her head minutely.

A moment later she bows her head over the bowl and empties the contents of her stomach in it.

Oliver bites back a curse and holds her hair back from her face. He can feel the tremors running up and down her back, shaking her like a life, and it's all he can do not to flinch. He doesn't dare move because he's not sure whether he'll flinch away from her or not and he doesn't want to find out.

It's strange how much pain he can stand, and yet the thought of hers, being in the vicinity of it, shoves at him like this, leaving him grasping for his equilibrium.

The computers beep and Oliver and Digg share a quick look, before John hurries to check the results.

"I'm sorry." Felicity moans, without looking up and Oliver can tell that this time it's tears that are thickening her voice.

"Don't be." Oliver says immediately.

He all the things inside him that have been rattling loose and that don't allow him to sound as reassuring as he wants to for her. But talking feels like biting off pieces of iron right now and he doesn't know how to fix it. So he tries to translate gentleness in the way he helps her straighten up, even though her face twists a little bit in pain as she moves. He hands her a napkin, a bottle of water. Takes the bowl from her and sets it down ( _but not too far_ ). He stays close enough to catch her if she wavers enough to tip over and watches silently as she washes out her mouth, takes a few deep breaths and rubs away the tears with a shaking hand.

"We'll take the antidote with us." Oliver says as Felicity wraps her blanket back around her shoulders. The way she's shivering makes him think about getting his grey coarse one too. "We have to go now, ok?"

Felicity nods.

It's then that Digg steps into their line of vision. Oliver can tell from the sheer look on his friend's face that things are about to get worse.

"What?" he asks.

"There's no ID on the substance she was injected with. It doesn't match anything in any database." John says, his face forcefully blank.

"That's impossible." She mumbles as she reaches for her tablet. Digg holds it in front of her. Oliver looks down, understands nothing of the sequential numbers, so he looks back up – just in time to see Felicity's confusion melt into a look of backbreaking fear.

"What?" he asks, reaching out for her and then changing his mind, hand falling stiffly at his side, fingers curling against his palm in a tight fist.

Felicity gulps heavily. She was hurting before, feeling like… well like someone just beat the crap out of her. But now it's different.

Now her heartbeats are getting erratic again and her hands are sweating and she's starting to feel like she is made of water. All that is keeping her liquid insides contained is a thin layer of fragile skin. The most flimsy construction ever.

"This isn't…" her voice cracks. It's as if her tongue is going to stick to its roof and she'll never speak again. Licking her lips doesn't help much.

She hates how smart she is sometimes. Because her brain just jumped the distance and this mystery unraveled in front of her the moment she pulled at the first string she was able to get her hands on. It makes her wonder how people who don't always understand things feel. Do they feel safer?

"There's no match because this isn't a toxin. It's not poison." Felicity explains, sounding steadier than she feels. She looks at both John and Oliver in the eyes and feels like saying 'sorry'. "It's a virus."


	6. Chapter 6

_Let me wear_  
deliberate disguises  
Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves  
In a field  
Behaving as the wind behaves  
No nearer—

 _T. S. Eliot_

The next hour is surreal: there's a sort of anxious, too-fast-for-true-understand feel to it that dreams usually have. And just like a dream, its pieces scatter at the fingertips of consciousness every time Oliver tries to separate a particular moment from the whole.

They tell Roy and Sara to not go inside Felicity's house for any reason. ( _When Oliver explains why, the heavy silence on the other side of the line presses against his ear like the ocean at 100 feet of depth. It reminds him of the stillness on Felicity's face_.) Felicity makes both Oliver and John take blood tests. They do that without too much fuss. As they do, she changes into a pair of sweats Oliver hands her - the only pieces of clothing he could find at the moment that were clean enough for her to wear.

It's such a surprise seeing her in them. Felicity usually seems larger than life, so bright and colorful that she can literally fill a room all by herself. Maybe that's why she seems even smaller than usual like that, swallowed by his clothes. Fine-boned and breakable, wrapped in swaths of fabric too big for her. All the grey makes her look paler, it makes her puffy eyes look even redder, the skin looking so tender Oliver can't look at her without his breath staggering.

But those are thoughts that scab at Oliver's control and threaten to smash the already tenuous hold on his calm, so he puts them in the box of things not to dwell on just yet.

 _Not yet._

When their tests come back clean, Felicity orders both John and Oliver to get out.

Digg flat out tells her he's going nowhere near his daughter – or anyone else out there - until they know what they're dealing with. Oliver… Oliver just looks at her and says nothing, his silence falling between them with the heavy thud of an anvil.

He could go.

There is a familiar part of him – the skin he's lived in for years, the one that has kept him alive - that _wants_ to. That part of him is itching to run, as fast as he can, and find someone whose face to break open over this, because he can't _stay_ and be still within the same space where she's hurt. Where dark thoughts crowd over him, reminding him of every ounce of blood he's seen spilt, every death and every way this could become a nightmare.

He can't stay here where he's just terrified and helpless…

All of this is true, and it builds restlessness inside him into a living, breathing little beast that scratches at the insides of his ribs, wanting to rip out.

He could let it out; he _could_ leave. But he won't.

Because they don't really know if they're in the clear just yet and because… because knowing that Felicity expects him to just walk out of the very same place where she had so stubbornly insisted that ' _if you're not leaving, I'm not leaving_ ' makes Oliver's hands curls into fists with frustration. It makes him want to shake her to her senses: _We don't just accept things, remember!_

But then again, Felicity accepts things just fine when it's the people she cares about tipping the scales, doesn't she? She's proved it more than once.

The real wonder and the secret Oliver will never be able to unravel, is how she so often finds herself expendable.

He's known for a while how much she is _not_ , but the stark reality of it starts to corrode Oliver's insides at about the same time as Felicity starts being stubborn about letting either of them close to her, as if that would change anything. After the second time she almost tips over in her chair, white-knuckling her way through what has got to be a wave of pain, Oliver tries to get her to take some sort of sedative. Felicity refuses it - she's too busy running searches for a virus no database seems to contain. Oliver, in turn refuses to move away from her, which prompts her to Felicity refuse to drink the rest of the antitoxin until he does.

It's how they find themselves locked in a standstill for about five minutes until she stops talking midsentence, her breath coming short, eyes rolling at the back of her head a moment later.

Both John and Oliver move for her – Oliver just gets there faster. ( _He was closer_ ) He catches her by the shoulders, saying her name over and over, heart in his throat. She _burns_ beneath his palm, the heat of her body coming off her as if in waves and _this_ \- this is the moment when fear starts to really gnaw him open where it had sunk its sharp teeth in, earlier.

Felicity's loss of consciousness doesn't last much. Before Oliver can even work himself into a full panic, she's already blinking her eyes open.

"I'm ok." She says breathlessly, repeats it to herself. She pushes at his hands, turns her face away. Oliver doesn't budge.

"No, you're not." Oliver insists.

And it's time to face and they're not treading waters anymore. There are no waters shallow enough to tread here. He hasn't been able to touch solid ground ever since he found her on that bed.

"You're sick, Felicity, and we can't just sit here and…" and _wait_! It's starting to sound more and more insane the more time scraps by.

"We're not." Felicity insists. "I've already send my bloodwork results to Caitlyn. She is the brightest bio-engineer on this side of the country. She'll know what this is."

Right. Because so far they have no idea what she's been infected with, which is about the only reason why they haven't run to the hospital yet.

She was so calm when she told them earlier, that she'd thought someone had tried to infect her to kill the Arrow. As if it's par course. As if expects the idea to be obvious. Easy to consider.

( _She doesn't feel the tectonic plates of the core of him shifting in the face of her so calm acceptance, all the ripples spreading._ _How_ could _she? She has no idea_ ) But so far she's the only one who's sick.

The second option, she told them steadily, was that it's not about the Arrow at all. That this was about her. She's gave them five of names of people who might want her dead right off the bat. ( _It's how Oliver knows she's been listing possible suspects ever since she woke up_ ) They're all people the Arrow has dealt with, who might have gotten a whiff of the vigilante's tech support.

Oliver doesn't know which option feels worse. The more he thinks about it the more it all feels like a double-edged knife he keeps turning inside himself: he can't really tell which side cuts worse.

It shivers something loose in him… calls something back from the depth of a dark place where deadly instincts have calcified.

Tension climbs him, like cockroaches under his clothes.

 _Fear…_

Oliver looks at her. Sweat is starting to bead her forehead, her hands are shaking and she looks about to pass out. She pushes at him anyway, trying to make him step away again. Oliver presses his tongue on the roof of his mouth, biting back the first frustration-tinged words.

"It doesn't _matter_." He says after a slow exhale. "If we haven't been infected by now…"

"We don't _know_!" Felicity hisses back and inches away from him as much as she can. Even that small exertion costs her. Her breathing shortens, her hand goes to her abdomen, wincing. It's ultimately why Olive takes a few steps back and grinds his molars together.

"We don't know anything." Felicity continues. "And until we do, we have to be _safe_."

"When is Barry going to be here?" Oliver asks for the fourth time. Felicity just gives him a firm look.

"Is this a grown up version of 'are we there yet'?"

There's exasperation in her tone, but a small, forced smile on her lips too.

Oliver presses his lips together in a straight hard line. "This is not funny, Felicity."

Her face falls then, and Oliver can suddenly see the exhaustion, every single line of her worry, the sparkles of fear she's trying so hard to contain behind deep-set eyes, the smudges like bruises around her eyes, her pale lips. He sees it all. There's no way to escape it.

And she's living it.

"Oh, believe me, I know." Felicity says tonelessly.

"Ok, let's just take a breather here." Digg intercepts before this can go any further. He turns to Felicity. "How are you feeling?"

She sighs. Grabs the fresh icepack John hands her and puts it on her forehead with a wince.

"My throat aches, my head is throbbing and my eyes feel like they're going to pop out any second." And she move the icepack over her eyes just then, trying for some relief. "But, you know, details…"

Felicity gives John a plastic smile that falls almost immediately. She's downplaying it and they both know it.

( _She is. She doesn't tell them about how her heart flutters for no reason from time to time. About how she can't stand the light of her own screens and how every single fiber of her hurts. She feels as sensitive as scraped, raw skin - and yet, at the same, different parts of her body are growing numb. She doesn't say how scared she really is… how can she? They both look at her like they're a breath way from drowning and she's the only one keeping them up on the surface._ )

"How about your wounds?" Oliver asks.

He hasn't missed a single muscle moving on her face. She flinches every time she has to move.

Felicity just sighs. "Hurts."

John crosses the distance between them in three strides. "Let me have a look."

They know something is wrong the moment Felicity gathers the long hem of the sweatshirt back and they see bluish bruises blooming on her skin, stark mementos of violence, peeking from the corners of her bandages. Oliver almost chokes on his breath when he sees the state of the wounds beneath.

Her whole side is one big bruise in various shades of purple and the punctures are badly inflamed.

"That's… not supposed to look like that, is it?" Felicity asks in a low whisper.

John shakes his head, wordless.

"Ok. Ok, let's just, calm down for a bit." Felicity says, entirely for her own benefit as she takes a deep breath, closes her eyes tries to think.

 _Think_ , _dam it!_

This is her job: she's supposed to _know_ things, figure them out when she doesn't know. She's the one who predict all the things that could go wrong at any time and finds a way to be ready for every single possibility.

Felicity has no idea what to do when _she's_ the one with the problem though. And this… this isn't something she can hack into. Something she can research or dig up, or outsmart, or solve. This is…

What is this? What is happening?

For the first time, she allows herself to face that she has no clue at all. None.

It makes her want to cry, maybe just a little bit. Instead of giving in though, she just tries to put a calm face on before opening her eyes. She knows what she'll see when she does: the faces of her two friends, at the end of their wits, watching her like she's about to shatter. And she can't do that right now. She really doesn't have it in her to make them feel better because she's at the end of her rope too and they're just feeding each other's panic at this point.

It's why she wanted Oliver and Digg out of here. To keep them safe and keep them away. So that she could crack all by her lonesome.

As it is, Felicity has to choke back any signs of fracture and fear, because barfing is one thing, as is the occasional stumbling, but she can't cry in front of them too!

When a hand brushes her shoulder, Felicity knows exactly who it is. This is the way they reassure each other: touch, firm and present, a silent ' _it's ok_ '. It's steadying enough that Felicity feels she can lean on it a bit. Just for a moment.

Is it strange that she knows he can kill someone with those bare hands. That he is capable of violence she has never been faced with ( _she's seen its ugly ghost haunt his eyes countless times, bloody fingerprints everywhere on his soul, whenever he lets his guard down for her to see it_ ). And yet from those same hands Felicity has only experienced gentleness.

His hands… an anthology of tender touches…

It should be strange…

What?

"Felicity."

She blinks, frowns as she tries to focus her eyes on Oliver's face. He's right there. Her first instinct is to hold her breath. He doesn't seem to care for proximity but she does.

His eyes are wide and sad, but burning with determination. His whole face is set.

How can someone look so angry and so sad at the same time?

"It's going to be ok." Oliver tells her, eyes impossibly blue and wide - and she could almost smile. As if he senses the flimsiness of his own words, his tone gets insistent. And she can see it, the script getting skewered into italics by the heavy intensity of his will behind every word. "It _is_. Barry will be here to take you to STAR Labs, and they'll figure this out. They deal with weirder stuff than this, right? It's going to be ok."

She lets her eyes roam his face for a while, lingering more freely than she usually allows himself, and wonders absently if he's saying these things for her or for himself. Faith and optimism helps when dealing with problems, but Felicity likes ripping through them with logic just as much. It's the only thing that has never failed her.

But then again, Oliver is the exception there too. Maybe compartmentalizing things is contagious.

… maybe he just needs to believe his own words as badly as he need _her_ to believe them. Maybe it will make him feel better.

So she nods. Tries her damnest to let go of the fistfuls of the sweater over her stomach. Tries to regain some level of functionality outside of the frantic noisiness of her brain.

It's strange, how slow she feels. Thinking is hard when you have a headache that is banging on your frontal lobe like the fist of an angry god to distract you, but this is different. She can literally _feel_ her brain being cottoned, her concentration scattering at her fingertips every time she tries to think her way through this.

She feels restless, wants to move, _do_ something. _Anything_! This stillness is aggravating.

But she can't… She feels like her internal organs have gotten evacuation orders from her nervous system and are not fighting each other for a way out or something. There is that saying that you don't really feel your insides unless there's something wrong with them and if that's true, then her insides must be one giant fuck up right now, because Felicity can feel each and every fiber she is made of and that is something scary all into itself.

" _Felicity_!"

She snaps her eyes open - hadn't even been aware she closed them, not really.

"I'm here." She says immediately… or tries to. Her words slur just a little bit. She looks at both John and Oliver and they look… she has no words for those looks.

Wide eyes and pursed lips and shaking lips.

"What?" she asks, looking at them in turn. "I'm ok."

Oliver shakes his head minutely, wild-eyed and bone-pale.

"You weren't breathing, Felicity." He whispers and Felicity has to stop for a moment to comprehend that.

"Sorry…" the word is out before she can think about it. The way he's looking at her - like she just delivered his death knell or something - makes it the only acceptable thing to say. But Oliver just shakes her head at her minutely, like she's not making any sense.

Maybe she's not. Everything feels like so far away all of a sudden. Slow, like cotton candy has grown in between the gears of her brain.

It's not fear that she feels…

Felicity knows what fear tastes like, many different flavors of it. Empty rooms, raised voices. Needles, swords, bombs… what was she talking about again?

Right… fear.

No, she's not really afraid. There's a whole wall between her and emotion right now, she's just peeking from the other side. She's not feeling anything. Maybe that is the problem.

Her mouth feels so dry.

Felicity reaches for the glass of water on the table. She's been drinking a lot of water in the last hour. It's with a strange, almost foreign sense of detachment that she watches the glass slips through her fingers.

Felicity stares at the glass fall; watches Oliver catch it, his reflexes as sharp as ever. Watches her own had, fingers curling into her palm, sliding over it and then opening again.

She didn't even feel herself grabbing it that glass… She can't feel a thing.

"Oh…"

"What's wrong?"

He's right there when she looks, crouching by her chair to be closer to her eyelevel, his whole face a soundless plea… and all Felicity can think about is how she'd never noticed there were tiny flecks of gold in his eyes.

"Doesn't you knee hurt?" she hears herself ask, almost without meaning to. It's one of those things that just make it past her lips before she can close them. Her head is spinning a little. She leans back on the chair. God, her neck is so stiff, she would give just about anything for a deep tissue massage just about now.

"What?"

It's how shaky Oliver's voice comes out that gets Felicity's attention, more than the question itself.

Is it the light that is making his eyes look so shiny?

"Your knee. From sitting like that." She takes one long deep breath. Talking… what was she saying? "Get up, Oliver."

He does, and leans in close, both hands holding her face so gently she can hardly feel that either.

"Felicity, what's wrong with your hand?"

She reaches out, sees her own hand on his cheek and it's like it doesn't belong to her. Her brain tells her she should be feeling his stubble right about now ( _she's always wondered_ …) but she's not and wow, it's like an out of body experience.

Her sight gets fuzzy and then clears, tears tracing an itchy path down her cheeks.

"What is it?" Oliver asks her, his worry deepening every line on his face. There's almost a frantic feel to the way he traces her every feature. "Tell me. _Just tell me_. It's ok."

It doesn't sound ok, though. Not ok at all. He sounds scared and so sad. Looks it too…

She's never outright lied to him about important things before, though.

"I can't feel it." Felicity says simply. "I can't feel my hand…"

Doesn't even feel it when he covers it with his, wrapping his fingers around hers, engulfing her palm. She can see that he's holding it tight, but doesn't feel it at all.

"So weird…"

She remembers that one time when she was maybe six years old and got local anesthesia when she went to the dentist. She'd bitten her lip to bruising because she couldn't feel it and figured it wouldn't hurt ever.

It _had_ hurt later though…

She's about to tell Oliver all about it ( _he looks like he needs a happy story right about now; she figures her stories are pretty nice comparing to his_ ) when a loud banging from upstairs interrupts her. Felicity sucks in a sharp breath and almost chokes on it. John leans over and punches the opening code of the Foundry's door. Before Felicity can say anything, there's a flash and she flinches, closing her eyes and bodily turning away from the light.

Felicity rests her forehead on what absently registers as Oliver's arm for a couple of minutes. Her head feels so heavy all of a sudden. When she manages to turn it, Barry's in her line of sight and she can't help a small smile. ( _Doesn't feel that one tear that slips out and slides down her nose_ )

"Hi, Barry."

His eyes are huge and shiny, chin trembling a little before he presses his lips together.

"Hi Felicity."

She frowns at him. Tilts her head out of habit – and has to close her eyes because the whole room tilts with her.

"Are those bruises?" she manages to ask. The left side of his face is covered in them.

"Yeah. We had an incident, it's gonna be fine. Listen Felicity…" He comes real close too, bends so that his face is all she can see. She wants to tell him not to. "…I'm going to need you to hold on to me as tight as you can, ok."

She groans, rolls her eyes. A moment later, Oliver is right in her line of sight.

"What? What's wrong?"

And he sounds so anxious. She wants to tell him not to be, even though she's really scared too. But that gets lost in the translation and all that comes out of her mouth is a faint ' _why does that never happen the way I imagine it?'_ "

Barry frowns. "What?"

He looks at Oliver as he gather Felicity close, head tucked safely into his neck to avoid giving her whiplash on top of the wound. He almost flinches when he feels how hot she's running.

Oliver just shakes his head. "Just take her. And Barry – come back for us, after."

Barry nods and then he's gone.


	7. Chapter 7

_This is the dead land_  
 _This is cactus land_  
 _Here the stone images_  
 _Are raised, here they receive_  
 _The supplication of a dead man's hand_

Barry rushes out in blinding flash of light leaving behind a crackling of live static that makes the air shiver and feel heavy. It reminds Oliver of storms… but that's not why every hair on Oliver's arms is raised. ( _That one empty chair is the reason; the way her absence seems to create a vacuum, sucking every noise out. It leaves the kind of silence behind that drums in his head, louder than anything. He can hardly think for its persistent echo_ )

Words have left him completely. Whatever is going on inside him is untranslatable. It goes silent in transit[1].

One moment she was fine. Aching and grouchy, hands wringing and trying to keep on a brave face, and the next one she just… She just _stopped_.

Stopped speaking, stopped answering.

Stopped _breathing_.

Oliver feels the feathery turning of that malign thing inside him; familiar rage without direction with rows and rows of sharp teeth, like sharks. The frenzy makes him burn from the inside out, heavier than blood and harder than bone[2].

He can feel Diggle's stare pounding against the side of his head but doesn't dare move. If he does, if he doesn't control every moment, every breath and movement, every word, Oliver is sure that he'll explode and destroy anything that he gets his hands on. Or fall apart.

Either…

Both.

So he just stands there, resolutely not looking at her empty chair and feeling the burn of it like a brad at the back of his neck, trying to bottle things up, trying to breathe. Having no idea what to do. Clenching and unclenching his fists, wishing to spark a fire between his hands with the strength to burn the whole fucking world down.

What was happening exactly? The world was either spinning too fast or not moving at all.

Was there even any difference?

When Barry blasts his way into the foundry again, Oliver flinches.

"Alright, who's first?"

oOo

He plans on staying behind.

John knows him too well for his own good and makes him go first. Oliver is not sure if he is thankful for it, or if he hates that he has people that can predict him now. Thankful that there are steel cables binding him to earth and the present, or if he hates them and wants to tear at them until his hands are bloody and just floats away.

He stops wondering. There are some questions Oliver would still rather not answer, because he knows he'll get them wrong.

There are some things that won't ever change.

* * *

[1] Anne Carson, Variations on the Right to Remain Silent

[2] VàZaki Nada


	8. Chapter 8

_The eyes are not here_  
 _There are no eyes here_  
 _In this valley of dying stars_  
 _In this hollow valley_  
 _This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms_

Doctor Snow is young, but she seems very capable and confident. And besides, knowing Felicity has changed a lot of John's perception on age and expertise.

The doc has been updating them on Felicity's condition as she takes their blood for the fifth time since they got there. They've been send through three checks and as many passages from one pressure room to another.

Digg has been keeping a careful eye on Oliver the whole time.

They're both walking on the razor's blade edge of control, but Oliver is more likely to slip and cut himself open. He's is a walking ball of explosive energy wrapped in thin skin and jaw-breaking willpower. John can practically see it, the nerves loosening what is left of the seams of his control.

For him though, it's different.

John's never liked hospitals. The barren whiteness makes him nervous. The smell of sterile cleanness itches on the inside of his nose and splits his skull into a headache like no other. One that feels familiar and throws him 15 years into the past, back when he was a barely more than a teen, with a little brother to take care of and a mother who was slowly fading away without anyone being able to do anything about it. It feels like the exact same situation he's in now, and that opens old hurts that John had thought had long scarred. He can't help but look around the steel and glass halls and taste the same helpless of that child he was then.

"- The virus itself is unlike anything I have ever seen before, and I mean that literally. It's active in _her_ body and completely alive, but it dies immediately if in contact with any other live organism. Which leads me to believe there was some kind of agent that 'weaponised' it, so to speak, as it was injected in her. I can find no traces of the agent, though…"

The moment Oliver looks at him, John knows they're both thinking the same thing: Felicity was the sole intended target of this… and neither of them knows what that means.

Caitlin Snow turns and looks at Oliver and John in the face.

"You should both be thankful for that. The virus without the active agent is useless and that's the reason neither one of you has been infected."

One other glance shared between them and John knows that neither of them can even conceive of that kind of thankfulness at the moment. Snow seems to sense it because she nods and then continues.

"As far as I know, there is no record in medical history of anything like this, so it _has_ to be some new hybrid." The doc's voice is steady and almost dull. He's heard the girl speaking before; he knows that's not her usual tone. John wonders, maybe unkindly, if they teach that at med school too. "Most viruses to this day are no more advanced than they were thousands of years ago - they still haven't learned to stop killing the cells they infect. But whatever it is that Felicity has in her system…"

Snow takes a breath and rubs her forehead with her forearm, keeping her gloved hands away from her face. She looks about as weary as John feels, which is saying a lot, but her movements are quick and precise and so are her words.

"What? What about it?" John prompts.

Snow meets his eyes unflinchingly.

"It's infecting the cells without destroying them. They are instead altered, so that they can 'multitask' their own needs while _also_ producing virus clones, which in turn infect more cells." she explains. The drained expression on her face overwhelms her professionalism for one small fraction of a moment, long enough for her to expel a careful breath. But then the moment is gone and her eyes are as sure and steady as ever when she looks at them.

"Her body is reacting as if this is an infection – producing antibodies and trying to fight it off. It's why she has such a high fever. But the antibodies aren't specific to the virus, because it's unprecedented. And once the thyroid glands were infected, her metabolism increased and it's only making this virus spread faster."

"And that means what?" Oliver asks, voice tight and carefully controlled. He's been biting down words ever since they got here, jaw working against his tongue to the point where John thinks any moment he might open his mouth the room will explode in blood[1].

The pause Snow takes before answering is in itself an answer – especially to two people who are so on edge they will read your every shift down to your eyebrows and collect it, to make a language out of your every twitch.

"It means that the window I have to come up with an effective vaccine gets smaller, and Felicity's chances of it working get slimmer." Caitlin Snow sighs. "And I don't know what the lasting damage of the virus will be, if… if I can in fact create a vaccine."

It takes a long moment for John to process that. He's not sure he even can, not really, because it sounds like the doc's saying that there's no way out of this. He flexes his fists. Open and closed, again and then again, rubs his hands on his thighs – a self soothing gesture he hasn't fallen back on ever since he was a kid. ( _Oliver starts bouncing his right leg again and then grabs his knee to stop it. Clenches his jaw harder, viciously trying to restrain whatever is storming up inside him. It's a wonder his teeth haven't snapped yet_.)

In the mean time Caitlin Snow takes off the rubber gloves with a snap and sits down in front of multiple computer screens to process their blood data and Felicity's.

"The speed of the infection is only part of the problem. The other part is that it does not seem to discriminate." Wells adds, derailing John's attention.

The professor's eyes are bright and unsetting in a way John can't explain in words, but that causes the muscles of his neck to tingle. He knows what Oliver means when he says there is something off about the guy, but in that moment his cold intellect feels reassuring.

"Most viruses are highly specific in what tissues they target, but this one seems to be able to infect _every_ living cell in the body, with the exception of red blood cells." Wells takes off his glasses and rubs the bridge of his nose. "And though it seems to be a mononegavirus, it's behaving more like a retrovirus. Once inside a cell's cytoplasm, it uses a reverse-transcriptase enzyme to produce DNA from its RNA genome, via the cell's ribosomes, which is then absorbed…"

Oliver inhales a sharp breath through his nose.

"In simpler terms, if you could, professor." He grits out almost between his teeth.

Wells blinks and then nods. "Of course mister Queen. The virus is practically rewriting itself in minute parts of her DNA, one cell at a time, in what seems to be mutating Miss Smoak's genetic makeup."

Oliver presses the tips of his fingers against his eyelids. If he's anywhere John is, the inside of his eyelids probably feels like sandpaper against his eyeballs.

"What does that _mean_?" Oliver almost growls.

Snow and Wells exchange a look that Oliver misses, but John does not. It makes him frown.

"We… we don't know." Snow answers, looking at Wells for confirmation, who doesn't add anything.

John sees it coming, but it happens too fast for him to do anything about it. ( _he's not sure it would have been smart to anyway. Touching Oliver right now would be like putting his hand on a high-tension live wire_ )

Oliver gets up on his feet so violently that the chair he was sitting flips on its back legs and falls down.

"You're _supposed_ to know!" Oliver insists, voice lowering to that pitch of ruthless anger that was better suited under the hood.

Caitlin Snow flinches. "We're doing everything we can…"

Oliver takes one step towards her. John gets up immediately, shadowing him, ready to take hold of the situation.

"Are you? Cause all I keep hearing is that she's in there slowly _dying_ and you have no idea what is wrong with her!"

" _Oliver_!" John snaps and Oliver turns away from both doctors, hands linking behind his neck, head bowed.

"Mister Queen…" Snow begins, a bit hesitant, taking a step forward. She squares her shoulders instead of shrinking, when Oliver turns a blistering glare at her. "We never said anything about her dying."

It's almost physical, the way John feels the whole measure of his concentration focus on the young woman. It's almost like getting tunnel vision in the middle of an open fight: insanely sharp details swarm him as his brain concentrates on that one thing and whole room seems to stand as still as he and Oliver are standing.

It occurs to neither of them that maybe their sharp scrutiny is the one that puts the doc in and not her own uncertainty.

"We don't know what's going on, but we _do_ know that Felicity's body is not effectively _failing_. I mean…" Caitlin Snow licks her lips, hands locked in front of her, knuckles whitening for how hard she seems to be holding on to her composure. "It's _changing_ , yes. We don't know what that means and it looks like a sickness, but…" she takes another breath and her words gain momentum, eyes shining in bright hopefulness. "Her fever is under control, we're keeping her hydrated and… and thought her heartbeat is erratic, it's not showing signs of heart failure. She's not… she's not actually…"

Caitlin Snow's open palms, waving in front of her as she explains make her seem as if she's reaching for the words out of thin air. Maybe it's John's experience with doctors and their inability to really know what disease they are fighting against, but nothing she's saying sounds very reassuring.

"You're just abating the symptoms… and waiting." John fills in for her, deliberate and merciless. Snow's face falls.

Oliver looks at him. John can hardly look back for more than a few moments.

"How long?"

Two blank faces and a pair of eyes too shocked to hide the terror beneath it stare at him, but John doesn't relent.

"How long?" He repeats, even though he doesn't really know what he's asking for. But if there is one ting he does know is that doctors usually have timeframes. There is always a deadline, once you step into a hospital.

To get better, to get worse. To wake up.

To die.

There's always a finish point and sometimes John thinks hospitals are the truest graveyards of hope.

Wells is colder, but Caitlin Snow turns out to be braver. She lifts her chin a little, straightens her shoulders.

"At this rate, the infection will be complete in about three hours." She says cleanly. No minced words. No maybes.

John stands up. "Are we done here?"

Oliver is already out the door. John follows a moment after.

oOo

Digg turns away to talk to Sara and Oliver just… freezes in front of the glass wall that separates him from the bed where Felicity is laying, dwarfed by the machines around her and the tubes and wires. He can hardly even see her. There's her outline on the bed but she looks like she's sinking it.

The room is dark because she's hypersensitive to light. Snow told them to touch her carefully, if they must, because her blood vessels are still a bit more dilated than normal and they will leak more easily. She'll bruise if he touches her.

The thought burrows beneath his tongue, slices him up with surgical precision.

He'd wanted to tell them, before, when they were helping her change, to be careful when they touched her. ( _Oliver's seen her be extraordinary, she is remarkable. He hates the way they touch her now, how they say her name as if it belongs in ordinary places_ ** _[2]_** _._ ) Not to put too many needles in her because she hates them, as well as fears them. She likes making jokes about it, but they both know there are more frightening truths beneath. Needles were never her favorite but now they make her anxious. Oliver knows exactly why.

Oliver flinches, moves away. Walks toward the exit. Only stops when Digg's arm catches his elbow.

Their eyes meet and John doesn't even really need to say anything. The disbelief in his eyes is enough and thought there is on judgment in them yet, Oliver knows it's just a moment behind the curve.

He looks away.

"I can't stay here, John." His voice is rough as fuck but then again he's been choking for an hour.

John lets him go.

"Yeah, I know. But you can't really leave either, Oliver." Digg reiterates.

He doesn't understand: Oliver can't _breathe_ in here. He can't think. He feels like his skin is boiling off his body with the need to run, to _do_ … something! To _hit_ something, ( _someone, anyone_!) let go of some of this oppressing weight that keeps slamming his chest every time he tries to take a breath.

He can't be here. _Can't_!

…but if he starts running he won't stop until he finds someone to tear apart every way he knows how. A specific someone – whoever it is. One, many - doesn't matter. Won't stop until he's taken all their screams. ( _The need for it is staggering, a screech in his head that rattles his brain. It's a hint of violent clarity, a dark promise. This would be the one monstrosity he would never ask forgiveness for or ever regret._ )

Maybe he won't stop running even after.

… because in the mean time, while Oliver chases down his cowardice, Felicity Smoak is going to take her last breath in a lifeless white room that she would hate, and he will never know what her last words were.

( _He doesn't_ want _to know… and he's not sure what that makes him_.)

Oliver closes his eyes and tries to push that thought away back. There had been a time when he had so many missing pieces that he could get away with being numb for days, until the present became memory and he didn't have to think about it. But now… now he's ragged, desperate and _stuck_ \- and trying to savagely restrain whatever it is that is loosening along the seams of his skin. It feels a lot like throwing his hands out to stop an avalanche though. ( _It's impossible. It will bury him alive. He's the one that has to move to escape it._ ) He stands no chance.

How do people survive this?

"I talked to Sara." Digg says evenly from his right. Oliver doesn't turn to look at him. He can't look away from her in that room. He bets she has a whole monologue about how depressing the white walls are.

"She says she has a lead. It's gonna take her out of the country, so she's stopping by first. She wanted… I asked Snow to send her Felicity's data so far."

Oliver doesn't say anything. His pulse is frantic, his hands are sweating. He feels like he's standing twelve inches behind himself, everything muted.

There's nowhere to run. Just a threshold to cross.

"There _has_ to be something that they can do." Oliver murmurs, speaking between clenched teeth.

There _has_ to be. _We don't just accept things_.

He hears Digg sigh.

"If there were, Snow and Wells would have told us. If a hospital were better for her, that's where we'd be."

Right…

 _Nothing_.

The words repeat itself in his head, like the reverberating sound of a struck gong. It leaves a bitter taste in his mouth, reminds him of bodies floating in the water.

The image echoes so loudly in his head Oliver flinches. He shifts his weight from one numb foot to the other, index finger rubbing against his thumb despite the fact that he can hardly feel his fingertips. He's been here before – not like this but close enough.

There is no way not to die, if he stays here. And Sara has a lead. He should be out there chasing it. He wants to.

But to Felicity Smoak, love means staying.

Oliver crosses that threshold. ( _Maybe that decision is one he made months ago too, he just never knew it until it made him bleed_ )

* * *

[1] Margaret Atwood

[2] Inspired by a Ezra Pound verse: 'I who have seen you amid the primal things / Was angry when they spoke your name / In ordinary places'


	9. Chapter 9

_Is it like this_  
 _In death's other kingdom_  
 _Waking alone_  
 _At the hour when we are_  
 _Trembling with tenderness_  
 _Lips that would kiss_  
 _From prayers to broken stone_.

The moment they steps in, Felicity's eyes latch on to them and within that first moment there is no way for her to hide that fear she'd been swimming in. But then she blinks and the surprise that attaches itself to her relief hurts just as much.

She's propped on the bed, hair pulled back in a braid, and covered from wrists and toes to her neck, wrapped in a white onesie made her crack a joke earlier ( _he was separated from her by a glass wall and couldn't hear, but he knows, because it made Barry smile and that time it reached his eyes_ ). It's supposed to keep her body-temperature stable, so she hadn't protested, but Oliver knows it's bothering her by the way her hands kept fluttering to her throat. ( _He's only seen her wearing a turtleneck once and she'd fiddled with the neckline the whole time.)_ There are icepacks around her head too and though its dark Oliver knows the exact shade of her pale face and of the circles under her eyes.

Oliver takes her in as he counts the steps from the door to her bed ( _five_ ) and hovers. Close, but not close enough, as Digg walks on and settles a chair close by her bed.

"Huh. I bet I look better than you two do right now." She says around a smile that is so shaky it just makes Oliver's eyes sting.

Digg huffs. "Wouldn't count on it."

Oliver looks at him so quickly he almost gives himself whiplash. Felicity snorts though, that draws his eyes back to her.

"I know, right! I look like I did my makeup backwards." She says with a grimace of distaste.

"Pretty close." Digg nods as he sits down and Felicity huffs out a sound that was supposed to be a laugh, maybe, but then choked along the way.

"That's rude!" She protests, without heat.

Digg shrugs. "You shouldn't have laughed, then."

Oliver stands there, feeling cold and apart, without knowing what to do with himself, and watches Felicity narrow her eyes at John with a small smile.

It makes him wonder how they do it. How can they, even now, find some kind of steady ground beneath their feet trough the familiar, while Oliver feels like he's endlessly falling?

Her eyes settle on him and whatever she seems on his face makes her sober immediately. That's when Oliver knows, without a measure of doubt that she's as awake in this as she is in everything else. Whatever sliver of pretence there is left in her, it's there for their sake, not hers.

"So you two are definitely in the clear?"

Oliver doesn't move. Can't. Digg nods for both of them.

"Ok. That's good. Any idea who's behind this?"

"Sara has a lead." Digg answers. It's like he knows that Oliver left coherence at the door. "You sound better."

Felicity looks like the words brush her by for a moment, but then nods.

( _…and Oliver wants to tell her that he's going to tear whoever did this to her into pieces and make it last months. That if there was ever a reason why he's had to withstand horrors and learn to become one, maybe he's finally found it. Maybe it was all so that he could come to this moment prepared for knowing how to warp himself into someone's nightmare)_

 _(…he doesn't say anything. He knows how to keep his violence to himself._ )

"Yeah. Dehydration, the bump on the head, some weird neural thing Caitlin explained. Not a good combination, overall. It made me fuzzier than the Digg's aspirin."

 _Weird neural thing…_

Oliver stares hard at the side of her face. She didn't look either of them in the eye when she said that - that would have been one tell. The other is time and the knowledge it brings. There are 206 bones in an adult's body. Felicity knows the names of 183 of them by heart, because ' _there was a month I wanted to be a doctor back when I was a fifth grader'_.

That she's choosing to fall back to vagaries for this, when she almost never does for anything else, tells Oliver a whole lot more than Felicity seems to be willing to share.

"And that's… is that…" Oliver stops; doesn't really know how to ask what he wants to know. As usual, Felicity doesn't really need him to.

"No, that's not supposed to happen again. Or so Caitlin said." she fidgets a little with the edge of the thin blanket covering her. "That was… not fun, no."

Oliver tries to imagine it, how it must have felt for Felicity to lose her ability to control her own thoughts. Her mind is her most powerful weapon, so Oliver thinks about losing his hands, or his eyes, his senses. He recalls his first days on the island, the chilling terror that used to freeze his stomach. The sense disorientation, the blind panic of when he realized what it meant to be at someone else's mercy in a place where mercy had dried out long ago. ( _the sense of loss, that hollow shame he'd felt as he continuously scattered pieces of self along the way, exchanging them for one more breath_.)

' _Not fun_ ' is a whole new level of understatement, all of a sudden.

"Are you…" Oliver purses his lips against t words. Are you ok?! _Really_? He clears his throat and tries again. "How do you feel?"

Felicity takes on long shuddering breath.

"Ok, mostly. Cold?"

She's flirting with 104 degrees of fever - _of course_ she will get cold flashes. That's the least of her problems and she knows it. Oliver grabs the bars at the foot of her bed ( _so hard he feels his bones protest_ ) and hangs his head.

" _Felicity_."

"What, I _am_!" She insists, only with t frailest hint of defensiveness. "I can barely feel my toes."

And it comes out of her mouth so honestly that Oliver can't stand it. That small discomfort is nothing, but in that moment it overwhelms his whole word and bursts through the seams of it. It's what finally moves him closer through the air of this room that weights a hundred pounds over his shoulders, and sits right on the foot of her bed. Finds the shape of her feet over the blanket and wraps them in his hands ( _she jumps a little, surprised, then relaxes_ ). He watches his own hands instead of her face as he tries to make the heat of his skin seep through and warm her tiny toes.

"Better?"

Oliver looks up to see Felicity biting her lip, face scrunched up with effort, eyes shiny. She nods and turns her eyes to the ceiling, blinking fast. A moment later she turns to the side facing Digg, and coils inwards, bringing her knees close to her chest, flinching a little when her head settles further into the cold pack against her temple. Both Oliver and Digg pretend not to notice the way she surreptitiously brushes her fingers over the bridge of her nose, where a tear had slipped.

oOo

Felicity feels herself floating between thick, unnatural sleep and achy consciousness. Neither grips her fully and it's a lot like having an anxiety attack in the middle of the night, wondering why you're not sleeping, even though every bone in your body is twice as heavy and the bed is like a giant marshmallow you're sinking into. Whenever she does open her eyes, every movement anyone makes feels like a stab through them. She struggles to get a hold of herself enough to break free… but she's hurting in ways that Felicity didn't even know her body _could_ hurt.

She's pretty sure she's on some kind of happy drug though, because there is a vague pulling sensation from her abdomen but mostly she just can't feel a thing on that whole area down there. She smells like a pharmacy too and it makes her want to hurl, but there's nothing left in her stomach to throw up anyway. Sometimes she can't feel whole sections of her body and other times it's like she is perversely aware of every line of muscle skin tissue she is made of. She doesn't know how to read these sensations: they come at her like words in a different language.

And she's so _cold_ too. She can't stop shivering even though she stopped asking for blankets a while ago. Can't feel her fingers and toes either… but Oliver is being sweet enough to break her heart, ( _such a surprise, that he could be that too_ ) so Felicity doesn't say anything about that anymore. ( _She doubts it escapes him that she's shivering – at some point her teeth start clattering_.)

She is _so_ going to hate being cold from now on! Felicity's never really liked winter anyway, for a lot of reasons, but now the cold it's just going to remind her of wet eels.

She starts giggling at the thought and it halfway turns into a cough but it doesn't manage to wipe the smile off her face.

"What's so funny?"

She looks over to her side where John is leaning closer to her from seat that looks way too small for the breadth of his shoulders, and she smiles.

"I know what being a fish feels like now." She murmurs. Gross and shivery – that's how it must feel.

Though she doubts being a fish feels any kind of way to the fishes…

John manages to express a disproportionate amount of emotion through just a small twitch of his eyebrows, Felicity notices. He can look amused, disbelieving with a side of nonplused, by just twitching his left brow - while his right empathetically tells her from high on his forehead to ' _get it together_ '.

Digg's left eyebrow is way judgier than his right one, now that Felicity thinks about it. The thought makes her giggle some more.

Digg's right eyebrow is Miley Cyrus.

This time she really wants to laugh, but instead Felicity rolls her face in her pillow, pushing the icepack away ( _unleashing a fraction of her frustration on it and yet, it's so_ satisfying _when she hears it smack on the ground!_ ) and bites her lip so hard she tastes blood.

The sting distracts her enough that she's able to keep in the mix of emotions curdling in her stomach mostly silent.

There is no thought ridiculous enough that will be able to distract her from how her heart is beating so fast and how she can't seem to control her breathing sometimes. Nothing that can really dull her fear… or that pressing thought at the back of her head that… that this is really it. It seems so strange. The possibility of dying. She'd never considered it before.

Well that's a lie. Of course she had. Multiple times. It really does speak to how her life has changed in the past 2 years. But Felicity has never had quite so much time on her hands to feel death's chilling breath against her neck. Never been so helpless against it. Without a plan, a strategy, adrenaline to dull the edge of the insanely dangerous risks she took. And the _need_ to make them worth it anyway, because there were thousands of lives hanging in the balance of her being brave enough. This is nothing like that. Nothing is hanging in the balance but _her_ this time, and this one time is the one Felicity can't do anything about it. ( _she'd almost started crying again when she'd tried to type on her phone and couldn't hit the buttons she wanted_ ). She might as well be tied on this stupid hard bed.

The thought makes Felicity want to set it on fire. She can't do that either though. She probably would kiss the pavement right now if she tried getting up.

Angry tears make her even angrier really, because she can't afford them, so she has to hide them. ( _She's spent a lifetime believing it was a luxury she couldn't afford, dwelling in her fears. It's always helped her get through them, but she never really gets over them._ )

 _I'm so tired…_

The next coughing fit she has leaves tiny red dots on her pillow. And that's when it really downs on her: She's not just _tired,_ is she? That's the wrong word. …She's dying.

oOo

"Can't you make them leave, Caitlin?"

Caitlin looks up from where she is checking the progress of Felicity's vitals, to meet the other girl's look.

The light is kept low because Felicity is hypersensitive to both light and sound, as well as touch, but Caitlin can still see the pleading look in Felicity's eyes, that desperation that is not quite there when Mister Diggle and Oliver Queen are in the same room with her.

Caitlin thinks back at how neither of the men had moved away from her bedside for a moment since they stepped in. How they watched her when she slept, like they were both trying to determine her condition without the benefit of a scanner. She thinks at how easily she can read the anxiety on John Diggle and how Oliver Queen keeps staring into space looking completely lost. ( _Doctor Wells thinks he's had at least on dissociative episode so far. Caitlin takes his word for it_ ) She really doesn't think it's the very best idea to go anywhere near the man, but she will if it's what Felicity wants.

But then again, Caitlin can't really forget that Felicity was all nerves and restless shivers until she saw both her friends coming through the Labs doors, so…

"I will if it's what you really want, Felicity." Caitlin tells her, carefully choosing her words. "You're my patient, my obligation is to you."

Felicity takes the words in with that exceptional stillness that Caitlin is starting to find unnerving.

"There's some kind of law that says you have to tell me the truth, right? As my doctor." Felicity asks, taking carefully controlled breathes between words. It's getting harder for her to breathe and Caitlin thinks they might have to intubate her soon.

"Yes there is." Caitlin shakes her head, grasps for better words. "I mean, I have the legal and professional obligation to answer all your questions to the best of my ability."

"And honestly." Felicity adds, turning those bright eyes to Caitlin's face. And she knows that it's the infection that is starting to creep up on her that causes Felicity's eyes to look so shiny, but the effect is still very… unsettling.

"Yes, of course." Caitlin says. She has a feeling she knows where this is going, so she steels herself.

"Am I dying, Cate?"

Caitlin blinks against the calmness beneath that question.

"It's possible. I don't think so, but it's a possibility. Your heart is having trouble keeping a steady rhythm, and your left lung is bruised. That's why you… before…"

"Coughed blood and freaked everyone out?"

"Yeah. That. I didn't see that one coming. Your scans looked perfectly normal."

Felicity doesn't even blink. She's still waiting. She did ask a yes or no question, after all, and situations like these are the reason why Caitlin was so eager to work in research and not with actual patients.

How are you supposed to tell someone they could stop existing in the next hour?

Caitlin doesn't have the answer to that, so she falls back to the things she knows.

"Considering all your lab results and the progression of the infection, there's 47% chance that you could die of heart failure, 30% chance of liver failure. You have a very light inflammation of the esophagus and there's a 32% chance that it could develop into an inflammation of the lungs, and if it does, there's an 85% chance that it could prove fatal. I'm going to take care that that doesn't happen." Caitlin adds firmly. "Your body is consuming a stunning amount of fluids and energy, but that's good, because it means it's fighting back."

Caitlin steps closer, takes Felicity's hand.

"I'm going to find a vaccine Felicity. You know me, I'm good at this stuff." She tries for an encouraging smile. "I found the cure for the Mirakuru didn't I?"

She'd been hoping Felicity would smile back, of even nod, but she's disappointed. She looks away, through the glass doors where Oliver Queen and John Diggle are sitting, waiting for Caitlin to be done with her checkup.

Caitlin gathers the last of her nerve. "Do you want me to tell them to stay out?" She asks, voice carefully blank.

Felicity blinks fast, takes a deep breath ( _tries to_ ) and then shakes her head minutely.

"No." She says softly, still looking out to her friends. Then she says it again, and this time it sounds surer. "No."

And though Felicity gave Caitlin neither a smile nor any other sign of faith before, that one word she says while not even looking at her is as good as.

oOo

( _It's not her fault, really;_ _Caitlin Snow just doesn't know what Felicity Smoak gathering her nerve for a goodbye looks like_.)

oOo

Oliver knows what it means, to have things happen too fast to feel them and slow enough to catch every little detail at the same time. The whole room gets huge and he can see every little detail of it; of her. And then everything gets small enough to fit on the eye of a needle and Oliver can feel his bones grating against the inside of his skin, trying to break through.

She gets a lot quieter, a lot more _intent,_ after the blood-on-the-pillow incident ( _Oliver has no idea on what her brain is turning around… but he has an inkling; one that grows in his brain like a weed, fed by the way she looks at him_ ). She gets paler too, her skin taking a grayish hue that scares the hell out of him.

When Felicity tells them quietly to please turn off the remaining lights because it makes her eyes hurt, Oliver has to brace himself on the bars at the end of her bed so that the doesn't fold into himself, as Digg turns off the one light that had been on – the farthest one from her bed.

The room plunges into darkness, one that is broken only by the dull lighting that comes from the monitors around her.

"You don't have to do this, you know." Felicity says in half a whisper when Oliver leans in close to press a fresh gel icepack on her forehead.

Oliver's eyebrows twitch a bit closer together. It's not exactly a frown - he's been keeping his facial expressions under such tight control that Felicity has been counting time by the number of muscle-twitches in his jaw.

"Do what?"

Her cracked lips curve into a smile that is small and sad and hollows out her eyes even more… and Oliver knows he's just been slammed into a wall. He still refuses to open his eyes and face it, though.

( _He'd rather keep slamming against it, actually_.)

"I know you can't stand to be here." Felicity says slowly, carefully inhaling after every two words or so, her face open and so understanding it sparks _anger_ in him, of all things. "It's ok. I wouldn't want to be here either."

He thinks back at the way he'd felt standing outside the door, needing to run and not being able to find his feet.

"Felicity, what are you talking about?"

Felicity snorts softly.

"You still suck at lying." she says around that same hollow smile.

The expression melts off her face pretty quickly. Maybe she can tell how much it alarms him.

"You don't have to, though. Try so hard, I mean."

Oliver just looks at her, wide eyed and heart in his throat, trying to keep it all down. He doesn't even dare open his mouth. He almost jumps when he feels her hand wrapping around his wrist. Her hold is barely there, but she might as well have a grip of steel for how likely he is to move.

"It's going to be ok, Oliver."

The words flutter around him, tangential and shallow. He's stuck in this moment and nothing outside of it makes sense.

"I know." He murmurs, the words barely making it out of his numb lips.

Felicity's smile is a bit warmer this time as she tilts her head to the side, her eyebrows arching up in an eloquent and perfectly soundless ' _c'mon now_ '.

Her fingers flex around his wrist.

Oliver has no idea what Felicity sees when she looks at him most of the time… but she has particular expressions that he's learned to recognise. Like the way she looks at him sometimes, when she thinks he's hurting; an open wound of an expression.

She's looking at him that way now.

( _I'm sorry. I'm sorry I wasn't strong enough, fast enough. I'm sorry you have to watch someone else you care about die. …I'm sorry that I'm sorry. How can you quantify regret anyway? Is it every link on the chain or the spaces in between? She doesn't regret the things she did – she regrets those she didn't do._

 _I'm sorry I was as scared to kiss you as you were to kiss me… Maybe if she'd been braver they wouldn't be here._ )

"I'm so sorry." Felicity chokes out finally, biting the words of at the end like they just burst out without her permission.

And that's it really.

He's been keeping such a careful hold of his every micro-expression but the way her voice shakes rattles everything loose and whatever was so important before doesn't matter. He doesn't remember.

He can't see anything beyond right now and the shattered look on her face.

"What?" he's leaning forward before he has any idea what he's doing. ( _Her cheek against his palm burns him the way ice does when you hold it too long_ ) "What is it? What's wrong?"

 _(What isn't?)_

"You shouldn't be here."

Her whole face is an apology and Oliver feels his heart drop straight at his feet and through the floor.

"You… you want me to go?" he doesn't mean it to sound as cracked and hurt as it does, but he left pretence behind about five sentences ago.

"No." Felicity answers immediately. Strong. Sure. "But… I don't want you to go through _this_ , either." Her hand slides down his wrist to curl around his frozen fingers, pulling his hand closer. "It's ok, I promise. I'm going to be fine. You can go now."

Oliver knows the feeling of the world shaking beneath the soles of his feet. He knows all the different sounds it makes when it crumbles almost a well as he knows what it feels like to fall on the broken shards of it littering the ground and just wish to sink deeper. It's not unlike being buried alive and wishing, from the most honest part of himself, to _stay_ there. Die there.

He's breathed with these kinds of holes left in his lungs for years. It's no surprise that the echo of the shatter right now is so devastatingly familiar.

"I'm not going anywhere." Oliver says firmly, his face pulling into a harsher frown the more he understands. "And neither are you."

She doesn't really respond to that. There's some kind of amusement there in her eyes, lightening the depth of the thoughts turning in her head… but there's also a faint bitterness. Like the one he sees sometimes twisting her mouth over things she can't change.

"Well if you say so." Felicity murmurs.

It's supposed to be a joke, but it falls flat and straight on his back like an anvil.

Oliver is not exactly the best at words. He's better with actions, usually. Felicity is sometimes an exception because more often than not he looks at her and feels like he could maybe just _say_ things, straight out of his brain. But right now trying to find words feels like trying to trap smoke between his fingers.

( _In the end, he settles for hers_ )

"Felicity… remember what you said to me that night, when I was so convinced everything would end once I gave myself over to Slade?"

A flare of irritation lights up her eyes.

"This is not like that Oliver. I'm not giving up!" She insists and tries to tug him to his senses. ( _He's not the one that needs it this time, maybe that's ironic_ ) "This is biology. There's nothing to accept or fight here."

Oliver brushes back a tiny curl stuck to her forehead.

"It felt that way for me too you know."

He watches her blink rapidly, her nostrils flaring with how hard she's trying to keep steady. It's a success, mostly – her voice barely shakes. "Like what?"

"Inevitable." Like gravity. "It wasn't though., remember?"

Felicity nods, but she doesn't look at him in the eye as she does. She doesn't agree with him, but she doesn't want to hurt him by spelling out what he's trying so hard _not_ to admit to.

But what if it hurts more? Denial I something she's seen him roll in more than once – it has never actually made anything hurt less.

"Oliver…"

"You're not going to die." It's almost a snap. Almost. His voice is too quiet for it to be, but it comes close.

"And what if I do?" Because she's afraid of a lot, but the truth was never really on that list. She's seen what keeping it hidden away does to people. So she talks right over him, her voice wrenching his eyes to hers. Both stubborn in the same way, just different directions. "What then? …Am I going to be another one of your ghosts?"

She might as well have wrapped her hands around his throat and squeezed. She sees it too: the immediate devastation on his face. It stuns her. Felicity didn't expect this kind of open heartbreak.

Maybe she should have. After all, if there is one thing she's learned about him is that no matter how much practice he's had, Oliver never seems to get used to losing people. How that kind of childlike love can live in the same eyes that have seen ( _suffered and done_ ) so much violence and darkness, is one of the reasons she… she…

 _Oh…_

Felicity feels the realization come over her like a wave of heat. It's like dipping herself into a bath of warm water, form the tips of her toes slowly rising to her neck… and it's the first touch of warmth she's felt in hours.

It makes the bridge of her nose sting with tears she refuses to let out.

"I don't know." Oliver finally manages to say, once he was convinced that not breathing would only give him spots dancing around his vision and no better answer.

There is something that changes between them in that moment though. An almost imperceptible shift that is as subtle as a thin veil falling, in a flutter, to the ground. Oliver sees it settle in her, it looks a lot like a newfound calmness makes a bit of space for itself in her eyes. He doesn't understand what it is, what it means as Felicity curls a bit on her side, trying to bring her knees up. Struggling so hard just to find a comfortable position.

"Does that scare you? You look a bit scared right now." A smile softens her eyes, almost makes it to her mouth. She asks him then, in a small whisper. "Has anyone ever told you that it's ok to be afraid, Oliver?"

"Not in a while." He hasn't believed it in even longer. "Are you?"

It's almost too much to look into her eyes then, and see the answer carved there. He doesn't look away though, and she gives him the answer in silence, hands it to him like a secret.

"I'm trying to keep it quiet."

So fucking brave, that's just like her.

"You don't have to do that." Oliver had known she was doing it. He just hadn't known how to tell her to stop until right now. "John and I can take it Felicity."

He just wishes it sounded more convincing when he says it.

"It's my job to take care of you two though."

For the first time since he moved to the corner of the room to turn off the light, John moves. It's only then that Oliver notices he's not alone.

"We're a team, Blondie. Isn't that what you've been saying for the past 6 month?" Roy says as he steps closer to the bed, even though he seems weary of being too close. Oliver sees the panic flicker in his eyes, but the kid hides it well. "I thought the point was that we take care of each other."

Felicity jolts, then winces. It doesn't make her smile falter.

" _Roy_!" she eyes the bundle he's holding in front of him. "What's that?"

Roy shrugs, a bit helpless, a bit awkward. "Sara and I heard you wanted another blanket."

It's the first time since they got here that Oliver sees a real smile from her.

"Is that… is it pink? I can't tell."

Roy huffs.

"Yeah, no shit. It's like a cave in here. Yeah, it's the hottest pink I could find." Roy tries for a smirk. "Didn't know you had patented that shade."

Felicity's little laugh is soaked in tears. That blanket doesn't really keep her any warmer but she curls her fingers around it anyway and holds on tight. It won't keep her any safer either, but that's not the point.

oOo

Things get a bit strange after that. Roy being there teases Felicity into talking some more. He stops once Felicity starts giving taking shallower breaths and giving shorter answers.

The longer it takes for Felicity to say something, the steeper is the angle of the world's tilt for Oliver.

He'd been so adamant about not thinking about the word, even though the worst had been pressing against his skull ever since he got that call. But now that she tapped his fear on the shoulder, Oliver has been staring at it in the eye without interruption and it starts feeling a bit like ripping down the middle slowly, one stitch after another. Some parts of him are there with her, and the rest of him is some place else, where this can happen and he doesn't have to feel it. A place where he can look at her in that bed, surrounded by wires that seem to be choking the life out of her as much as keeping her alive, and able to think ' _She's fine. She's gonna be fine_ ' without having the thought burn. …Without having to be afraid of time.

He doesn't think about anything. Not her name, not even his own ( _especially not the way she starts saying it, and how it feels like she's digging her tiny birdlike fingers in his chest and pulling at whatever's left there_ ) ( _Take it, take it! Live,_ breathe _. I don't need it. I'm here. It's fine_ ); not the time or that there is a world outside that room. Not John there beside them, or Sara, or Roy, or _her mother_ …

He cracks open like an egg meeting the pavement when she asks him… or was it John? – to call her mother, after.

 _After_ …

Felicity looks at the storm in the eye and calls it by its name, but Oliver, he can't even think about it.

There is not going to be an after. After what?

Maybe he nodded, maybe he didn't, he doesn't remember. He knows he'd do anything she asked him to, so he probably did. The details of memories keep escaping him, though. One moment he's there by her side, the next he's by the door, and he doesn't know what happened in between.

The only thing that is scorched in his brain, the one thing he can't avoid are her eyes, wide and scared, looking back at him. That's his nightmares staring at him in the face.

He can't escape it, but he can't really be there for her either.

So he pretends. Just like she'd said he would, he plays the-dead-with-living-eyes for her, as he has for others before her. Gives her what she needs because she needs it and because he's been counting her breaths backwards ever since this started. Something huge looms over him, like a building falling and not moving away from the debris, he can't. So he stands there waiting, with her, and gives her the kind of face she needs. ( _Can she tell? The thought is like a piece of glass under his fingernails. She always could see the discrepancies. She learned to read him. One mask after another, faces he thought others needed to see in him… and her pursed lips whenever he pulled it off too stiffly. Ice-veined liar, dead man walking. He is lying now too. Does she know_? _Her words come back at him. 'You can go now.'_

 _Of course she knows_.)

It's the only way to survive. Playing dead, one heartbeat after another is how you make it through torture, through winter. Through blood and bone staining the world red with her every raspy breath until her eyes close, for another ten minutes and he can let the stitches holding his numb face together loosen when nobody's looking.

oOo

 _For Thine is_  
 _Life is_  
 _For Thine is the_

 _This is the way the world ends_  
 _This is the way the world ends_  
 _This is the way the world ends..._

They all begin to understand that they haven't even brushed against the bad part of all this when Felicity starts being in _real_ pain.

She's been so quiet for so long… Oliver's not really sure he even knew the sound of her screaming, outside his nightmares. But then he hears it with his eyes wide open and his empty stomach surges like it has just received evacuation orders from his spleen.

She wakes suddenly, a sob catching in her throat and by the time Caitlin sedates, her she has tears running down her face.

It's touch and go with her after that.

Technically it doesn't last even an hour, but it feels like it goes on forever. She's coherent enough to be afraid and misty enough that she doesn't really remember why she should hide it.

Or maybe she just doesn't care. Maybe she's forgotten why she's even there. That's what Oliver thinks when Felicity wakes in a harsh gasp and looks around, eyes utterly blind of recognition. Her breathing speeds up, no pause, no rest and starts wiggling her way out of the bed, ripping the I.V.s from her arm harshly enough that the inside of her elbows stain red.

John is the first one by her bed to stop her, just as the doc rushes in, Wells following behind closely. He takes Felicity's hands in his to stop her from causing anymore damage to herself and she whimpers at the contact, her face twisting in pain and curling onto herself to get away from him.

John wouldn't have let her go faster is she had been an actual hot iron.

They both watch as she curls her hands over her chest and tries to back away, slips and almost falls out of bed - she would have, if John hadn't caught her.

"No!" her voice breaks on the word. She hasn't had anything to drink in about an hour, it no surprise. The surprise is the fact that she seems to be utterly oblivious as to what is happening and where she is. Caitlin tries to calm her down but Felicity protests all the way through, at one point even almost hits the doc in a defensive move that Oliver recognises.

It's around that time that Caitlin calls two other nurses to help her while Cisco tries to get all three of them out of the room. ( _Roy is already backing away, a look of naked terror etched on his face. John has one hand hoovering on Oliver's chest, not yet touching him, but trying to usher him out anyway_ ) Tries, being the operative word.

Oliver's not really moving. He's looking in the direction John and Roy can't stop looking. He's watching Felicity being sedated, listening to her whimpers die down and counting all the bruises he can see in the low light, watching her face and seeing the play of shadows on it show him skulls.

Oliver blinks hard, looks away. Tries to swallow and feels his whole stomach try to come up in protest.

They explain it to him later. That she has to stay sedated. That it's either that or restrain her to the bed, because without the I.V.s that Felicity insisted on ripping out, she would develop infections, dehydration, and all kinds of things the names of which Oliver doesn't understand.

He knows he should know these things, that he should pay attention, but all that occupies his brain is the way Felicity had looked at him when he was close enough for her to see him. How her whole face had relaxed, his name curling around a sigh or pure relief.

"I'm ok now." She'd said, her movements sluggish, but determined, pupils blow wide and trying so, so hard to sound like herself. "Im fine, really. Can we go now?"

And the more he stayed silent, the more anxious she got, the more desperate. It's all there on her face.

And Oliver had forgotten, he truly had, that he really couldn't trust her in that moment. She's Felicity, the notion doesn't take easily. But she's not really herself - not the self he knows - and Oliver forgets that. Forgets that she's scared and in pain, and just wants not to be any of those things anymore. She just wants it to stop, to go some place where not everything hurts and she's not so sick and helpless and scared. Oliver can't really know all these things, so when she asks him to go home, Oliver doesn't know what to say or do, except shake.

"Please. Please, I just want to go home." her words slur a bit together and mix with tears. Even sedated she tries to set herself free, her fingers careless - they slip against her own skin.

"We can't go yet, Felicity." He tells her slowly, one hand reaching for hers. he doesn't dare touch her. The bruises from where John got a hold of her fingers earlier still blooms dark on her skin.

"Why not?"

"You need to get better first."

And Oliver doesn't know that those are the wrong words to say. He can't know. ( _John does - but he can't really tell him right now. He won't tell him later either. Lier will be too late and they won't serve anything_.) They only make her more frantic, more desperate to get away, as if moving will somehow stop what she knows is happening.

As if it will somehow stop her from fading.

( _She can feel it. The slow decay inside her body. With every movement, every shift of air in that room, it gets harder to breathe. She is burning, and she is starving, but the mere thought of feed makes her insides concave against her backbone with protest_.)

"It's going to be ok Felicity. You just have to stay here for a while. Just a little while." Oliver adds. He's speaking so softly, but his voice rattles her eardrums. Felicity turns her face away. She's trusts Oliver, it's not hard to believe him when all he asks for is just a bit more time.

( _He's always asking for time, one way or another. She has none more left to give_.)

oOo

They said three hours.

It's 2 hours and 15 minutes before she starts screaming. John send Roy out of Felicity's room precisely 21 minutes ago. The kid has enough to feed him nightmares at night, he won't be needing this too.

It's around the mark of four when Snow admits that her body is slowly shutting down and there is nothing they can do about it. Oliver looks at them like he doesn't understand a word. John knows he does. Just as he knows that it's best not to talk to him right now.

For once he's grateful. There are no words left in him.

It's 4.12 p.m. when Felicity wakes again. She's bleary eyed and calmer than she was the last time, even though John knows that she's in pain. There's only so much sedation i can give her before it stops her heart - that's what the doc had said.

They whisper to themselves and like many times before this summer, John leaves them to it. It feels like a perversion, thinking about it like that, but it doesn't make it less true. John doesn't hear what she says to Oliver this time. ( _He did overhear her before. '_ I want to go home _' she'd said, and John had turned away and rubbed his hands on his face. He'd been surprised to feel his own wet cheeks. Do_ all _the dying ask for home?_ ) But then again, maybe he doesn't need to overhead. He sees the shock clear as a picture on Oliver's face, the way pain ruthlessly slashes across that frozen layer of shock and opens him like a wound.

John watches as Oliver methodically, almost detached, unhooks Felicity from the needles feeding her life, one by one and scoops her up from that bed gently, so gently, and starts walking.

By way of explanation for this ( _a part of John wanted to stop him, the other part wanted to go other there and help him, take their girl home_ ), it says a lot, and loudly, that when Snow starts to protest, Wells is the one that stops her.

And John, he follows them slowly as Oliver walks to the far corner of the wide room and slides against the glass wall, sitting there on the ground with Felicity across his lap, face curled in his neck. He doesn't move or look up when John gets closer, when Sara comes running through and stops cold just outside of Felicity's room, breathing harshly and hands slapped against the glass as if she means to blast her way through and stop everything. he doesn't so much as twitch at anything. The world begins and ends in that one square foot where he is sitting on and for one moment John dares think about how the hell they are going to survive this.

oOo

He doesn't so much sit as he just falls against the glass wall and slides down with her in his lap. It's a wonder he managed to walk so far, really his knees are water. He can hardly feel his legs at all.

But he feels her weight like it's the whole world he's carrying.

The line between her lips is stained red and Oliver remembers a time when, in the middle of a city turned a battlefield, that little stain of blood just under her nose and her forehead swollen and red had seemed like the last step towards the end of all things. Back when 'Felicity' and 'dead' couldn't even be put together in the same sentence.

He can't distance himself now. How would that ever be possible: her every breath is fanning against his neck, each shallower than the last one, slower.

He's survived years drenched in brutality and had it dripping from the end of his fingertips for years more… and yet, the bloodstained line between Felicity's lips right now is the most violent thing Oliver has seen in his life.

"Where's John?"

"Im' here, Felicity."

Oliver doesn't look up at John's voice. Felicity does.

"Oh. Ok." She takes a raspy breath, her fingertips curling a little further in his T-shirt, where she's been gripping it. "Why are we stopping?"

"We're taking a minute. It's ok."

She blinks her eyes open. The intense ring of blue around her dilated pupils is all that is left of her blue eyes.

"Ok. Im tired too… So tired…" the words lose themselves between the whisper that fades in her mouth and her lips moving around it.

"You can rest now. Just close your eyes. it'll be ok." Olive knows he's the one saying the words, but he can't really feel them. Can't really feel anything. Doesn't even feel the tears slipping out - he just notices his vision is blurry for a moment and then clears.

Felicity huffs. Blinks her eyes open again and looks straight at him.

"I don't want to close my eyes. I want to keep them wide open."

Oliver feels himself nodding. "That's ok too."

Her hands move, doesn't get farther than his collar, where she curls her fingers and tugs just a little bit.

"Don't be sad, Oliver. Just… let's just stay here… for now…"

He feels it happen. Feels the beat of her heart flutter and stop at the same time as her last breath brushes the skin of his throat. Her body loosens, her hand falls from where she was gripping him before, her head rolls to the side… and thats how it all ends.

One last long breath you weren't prepared for and a body that suddenly feels so heavy in your arms… and all your insides around which she'd wrapped herself in a thousand secure strings, they rip open with the same suddenness with which she wretched herself out of existence. She takes every piece of your soul that she has managed to sink her hands into and leaves just torn and mauled pieces of meat behind and cavernous places where loss will echo into a deafening scream for years.

* * *

Notes:

All poems for this part of the story are taken from T. S. Eliot's 'The Hollow Men'  
Dont hurt me *hides*


	10. Chapter 10

_"At the temple there is a poem called 'Loss' carved into the stone._  
 _It has three words, but the poet has scratched them out._

 _You cannot read loss, only feel it."_

 _\- Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha_

If you asked her about it, Sara probably wouldn't answer, but in the privacy of her own head, she thinks she knows herself in an unapologetic kind of way. In fact, most days she is almost sure that having the nerve to hold an honest mirror up to her own face had been what saved her life. She never truly let herself forget who she was, even when it hurt to be reminded, and in the end that was what gave her the strength to get away from the League before the they could kill her in all the ways a person could be killed. ( _when she had felt at her lowest, she had chose a half life on the run rather than sink lower. Because is was Sara Lance: she knows there is_ always _a lower_ )

That mirror though, it has been distorted, smudged and cracked by the marks that violence and horror have left on her, so maybe her 'honest self' isn't quite as true to reality as she used to think. Maybe it's just as true that she sees herself as uglier than she really is, sometimes.

But this thought is young in her head. It's grown safely there guarded by the memory of the joy in Laurel's smile, her fierce will; by her parents' love and the bright hope on Oliver's face every time she made the decision to crawl just a little farther from her own resigned misery. Guarded, during the darkest times, by Nyssa's unbending love ' _for what in you is beautiful and that which in you is a storm'_ …

Every single person Sara had allowed herself to care about in spite of being afraid, or angry, or lost, had reminded her how to love herself back, as well as keep herself alive. And every person she'd let in, had made a new rising sun feel a little bit like a victory. It had helped her find her way back to believing that life was worthy of more than just breathing. That it was meant for _living_ – in spite of everything that has scared you, hurt you, tried to maim you. _Despite_ of it.

But Sara is too smart not to know that there is a price for everything you dare reach for in this world, and that that it is never to be paid for cheaply. She knows this truth the way fighters and blood-tainted survivors do: through the of weight of losing. The same way she knows there are things that happen sometimes, for which there can never be words. Feelings that refuse to be contained in them.

Like that moment when you win a tug of war. When the weight gives and all that extra rope comes hurling towards you. How, even though you've won, you still end up with muddy knees and burns on your hands[1] … How can there be a word for that? If there is, Sara doesn't know it.

But she recognizes the promise of it tugging her diaphragm up, up, up, pushing against her lungs. ( _people say that scent memory is the most powerful, but if you ask Sara, she'd tell you fear-memory is stronger_ ) She barrels through STAR Labs already feeling the flip in her stomach before the fall even comes.

The first thing she recognizes is the glassy stain of shock on Roy's face. He seems stuck between devastation and disbelief and looking at him Sara tells herself that it's ok. That she doesn't know know which way the truth has gone, not yet.

But that's a lie. The floor is already shifting beneath her feet. The weight has started dropping.

She sees Oliver and John huddled in a corner of a glass room with too many machines and too little light, the top of Felicity's blonde head peeking between them… and her palms burn like they're being skinned. In a tiny corner of her brain, a scared voice that sounds younger than Sara has in years, reminds her that there are no word for this, and that's why moving closer to that glass feels like dragging bare feet through a desert-hot stone.

It hits her so hard in the chest she can't breathe; the air feels too thin.

For moments that stretches endlessly, she feels like her feet have grown roots and she will never move from this spot, that this moment will never end, never break.

And then it does.

Sara doesn't know what wakes her into action. Maybe it's the way Oliver's shoulders shake, or the way John's hand hovers over Felicity's head but doesn't dare touch her, as if he's afraid. She doesn't know, doesn't care.

Sara turns her head, a snarl slashing her fury open all over her face.

"Why are you just standing there?" She asks thickly, fear curdling into anger on the way out. " _Do something_!"

The redhead jumps.

"There is nothing left for us to do." The man in the wheelchair says calmly, as if her anger doesn't touch him and for a moment Sara deliberates punching him in the face for his calm.

She scowls instead.

"Fuck you," and strides for the door. "Open it."

The girl's fingers shake but she is quick to punch in the code. Sara slithers in before the door has opened fully.

The distance from the door to the corner stretches on like an infinite tunnel before Sara makes herself take the first step, and the another, and another still, until she's kneeling by Oliver and John's sides, close enough to hear the gasping breaths Oliver is taking and see Diggle's unblinking tears collecting on his chin.

Digg notices her but shock doesn't allow him a reaction. Oliver hasn't even looked up from where he's hiding his face in Felicity's shoulder. Her head is tucked against the side of his neck, hands in her lap, loose and unmoving. She could be sleeping.

Sara knows she's not. She's seen too many dead bodies not to recognize their unnatural stillness when she sees it.

Dead. Between one breath and another, gone.

Not _Felicity_ anymore. Just a body, now.

Grief erupts in her chest, stealing her breath in a soundless gasp, but like the explosion of a star, before it can come out of her in sobs, it collapses right back into itself, a black hole of pain, making Sara feel like her ribcage is going to implode and suck her right out of existence. Her throat constricts and she hates herself for not having tears, for having forgotten how to let these feelings out before they choke her.

She doesn't know how. She can only gasp breath after breath and shake, the way Oliver does.

Oliver…

He's digging his fingers in Felicity's arm so hard that he's leaving indentations. It doesn't quite manage to hide the way his hands are shaking.

And that's when Sara wakes up.

"Oliver…" But her voice breaks halfway, so she tries again. "Ollie, please."

It's useless, no words can reach him. She knows this. She tries to touch him, but her fingers brush a cold cheek and Sara pulls her hand back as if it's been stung.

 _Dead…_

God, knowing it and feeling it as real is so different. She wants to grab Oliver and shake him, tell him to let that body go. She's gone!

As if heìd heard her thoughts, Oliver curls himself even more tightly around what's left, muffled little sobs making their way out of him as if he doesn't have enough breath to even cry about it.

Sara feels resolve solidifying in her out of sheer need. She grabs it and holds on to it, lets it expand her ribcage to make space for air. It's easier to breathe now that she has found something to do, something that is not crumbling here to hurt. And someone _has_ to do it, so it might as well be her.

Sara grits her teeth, grasps his shoulder gently.

"Ollie, look at me." He doesn't. He doesn't react at all, it's as if he isn't listening. He just holds the body tighter.

Digg shifts to give her more room, and Sara inches closer.

"Oliver." She tries to make her voice soft this time. As soft as she can, as low as she can. Loud will never get through to him now, but gentle might. Sara grasps the back of his neck, careful not to touch… anything… Careful.

She closes her eyes. _One breath, then another. In and out. It's not so hard._

And then again. "Oliver, It's Sara. Come on, look up."

He does - and stares straight through her, eyes bloodshot and wet with tears, completely unfocused. Now that his head is not in the way Sara can see her profile. The line of a familiar face, an upturned nose.

Bone pale, and still and so excruciatingly young.

And there it goes, the first crack. Straight to her chest.

' _I'm not strong enough for this._ '

The thought flits through her head like a whisper. But like all other fears, she pushes it away and does what she always has: what she must.

"I need you to let John take Felicity okay? I need you to let her go." He shakes his head minutely but doesn't really look like he understands what she means at all. "Just for now, okay? Just for now."

Heavy tears fall from his eyes on his already wet cheeks, and Sara feels her heart shred right down the middle. Her own pain she can take. God knew she's used to it. It was a familiar beast and she'd learned by now to keep it still enough to function through it.

But _his…_

It's too open to avoid, it runs too deep, too harsh to hide. Sara feels his pain more keenly than she ever felt her own. It makes her sight blur, her chin shake.

"Sara?" His voice is soaked in despair. It overflows. Like everything else about him, about _this_ , it overwhelms.

That numbness that has kept Sara together since she came here is starting to fray at the edges. For the very first time, she feels like if she gave in, she could truly cry her heart out this time.

But then who would ever hold him together?

"Sara…"

He sounds more aware this time, but says her name it it means something else. Like rope, the word twists and and it means ' _help me_ ' instead. Sara feels it sneak around her neck and pull tight.

She can't.

Hope died in his arms again and there is nothing she can do. Nothing she can say.

(' _One too many times' she thinks. And she's afraid_.)

"Yeah it's me. It's okay. Just… let her go. Just for now. Just…" she closes her eyes, sneaks her hand over his, her fingers between his and a cold unmoving body.

 _Let go, Oliver. Just let go_.

He's always been shit at letting go. He's been carrying corpses around on his back for years, his own sick version of 'nobody gets left behind'.

But to her surprise, the hold of his hands eases.

John inches forward, slides one arm beneath Felicity's knees, around her back. Sara catches a look of that pale face, the trickle of blood smudged at the corner of her mouth, the rest of it pressed against the side of Oliver's neck like a last gory kiss.

Sara closes her eyes against it.

No relief, behind her lids though. No relief for her anywhere. Her hands shake.

Oliver just lets it happen, but because Sara is afraid what he'll do with those hand once they're free of her body, she takes them in hers instead and holds on tight. She thinks absently if maybe it would be better to sedate him, but though his pulse is flying under her fingertips, he sits so still now, staring into space and so unmoving that that too is starting to worry her.

John sets Felicity's body down on the bed at the other corner of the room. Sara doesn't look at him do it. She can't. She can only take so much of this at a time.

Time…

She doesn't even have much of that left either.

The burn of a sudden, deep-reaching rage scorches her from the inside, so hot that it melts through her shock and covers her in a wave of cold sweat. She _knows_ who did this. And when she finds him… Oh, when she finds him, she will put the League's terrors to shame. Enact each and every horror she has ever known of on his skin. She'll carve him up for _days_.

The mire of violence almost consumes her - but even that is not loud enough to block the doctor's soft 'Oh my god'.

That whisper, the horror in it, splinters the silence of the room clean in two.

Sara's head snaps in her direction, instantly alert.

"What?" She asks, her hand twitching around Oliver's, who blinks slowly and looks up.

But the doctor isn't minding them at all. She's moving so fast it's a wonder she doesn't break anything, navigating the wires and machinery with the same precision a Sara wields her own weapons. She's hooking Felicity's body up to the monitors instead of calling the time and covering her up, and it all feels so backwards that for a moment Sara wonders when the fuck she fell down the rabbit hole, because nothing is making sense.

But then she hears it.

It's too slow, and too faint, but it's _there_. One heartbeat, marked into existence by the shrill, undeniable beep of the machine.

It pierces Sara's ears like a scream. Oliver's hands convulses in hers, holding on so hard that she can feel her bones bending, but she doesn't care. She doesn't care!

Because the next beat of Felicity's heart takes too long to come. The whole room, the whole _world_ , could be holding its breath for all Sara knows.

And then it's there, marked by the beep as the one before and Sara feels relief so strong that her spine seems to collapse with it. She literally folds into herself for a moment, bracing one free hand on the pavement.

The doctor fits around, hands moving so fast they're almost a blur. The other man wheels himself in quickly, starts helping. Sara has no idea what they are doing. Her eyes are fixed on the too-slow-but-definitely-there heartbeat of the friend that for a full fifteen minutes and a side of forever, she had believed dead. But she's not.

Not a body.

 _Felicity!_

Sara bites her lip so hard it hurts, it bleeds. And with the coppery taste of her own blood in her mouth, finally - _finally_ , the tears come too. Out of nowhere and without her permission, they trickle down Sara's cheeks, collect on her chin and fall down, pulled by gravity to the floor.

"What is going on?" Oliver asks, his voice so rough it sounds like it's scraping his throat rough just so he can speak. When nobody answers him, he asks again, and this time a thread of anger makes his words into almost a threat.

The doctors don't react at all, too engrossed in their work trying to keep that faint heartbeat going but Sara and John turn to him.

"I don't know." Sara says, trying to keep her voice steady. "Lets just wait and see."

But she can't wait. Her time here is running out. She has a plane to catch. A killer to chase. Anticipation makes her grit her teeth. She has a heart to cut out.

God, she hasn't reveled in the thought of violence like this in so long, even newborn hope can't seem to cut it out of her. There is a part, that part that will always long to be _good_ , no matter what darkness stains her and for how long, that makes Sara feel ashamed of the impulse. But not even in that part is she sorry.

The remainder of the backwards count of time wakes Sara up though, grief shaking off her bones like sleep. She has to tell them, and somehow, she has to convince Oliver that he can't come with her.

She's not sure how she's gonna do that.

The redhead tells them firmly to get out just as she unzips the top of Felicity's suit, looking for a vein on the inside of her elbow again.

Sara looks away.

"Come on. We can't stay here right now." She says, though even to her own ears her voice sounds weaker than usual. It makes her skin prickle with uncomfortableness though, being there. If she were in that bed, Sara thinks, she wouldn't want to be gawked at like this while she is unaware and so painfully vulnerable. It's not right.

But Oliver and John, even Roy from the door, don't react. They all look like they're hypnotized.

When Sara turns her eyes to Felicity, she sees why.

The two doctors have turned on the lights over the bed, so that they can see what they're doing and under the unforgiving fluorescent glow, the situations suddenly comes to life in all it's horrifying detail. Because while the redhead hooks Felicity up to the new IV, the other doc has pushed her tank-top up very slightly, so that he can change the bandages and clean the wound. And there on the bare skin of her arm, bloom bruises shaped like hands, grotesque for how accurate the imprint is.

Nobody bruises like that, Sara thinks. It's as if Oliver's hands had stained on her skin, pressing ink there, not a touch.

Sara can see the contusion changing color right before her eyes, and it sends a chill down her spine. But that's not what makes her mouth go dry. It's the sight of Felicity's wound on her abdomen, where whatever she had been poisoned with had been injected.

She cannot believe it. She truly thinks her eyes are lying to her.

Sara feels her heart beating in her ears as she lets go of Oliver's hand and stands up slowly. Someone says her name but she's not listening. For the first time since a gunshot had gone off a foot from her face and killed Shado right before her eyes, Sara truly turns to whatever fucking god there is up there and _prays_ hard for this to be a hallucination.

The doc is about to put a fresh bandage over the wound when Sara stops him.

"Wait." Her voice is a whisper, but he hears it.

The wound is so small, Sara can't even see it. Just a prickle of a tiny needle. But the skin around it… God…

It's blue and violent, like a ripe bruise from a hard hit, starting on her abdomen and spreading like inkstain in water over Felicity's tpp-skin. But Sara can see her veins spidering through it like tiny red rivers, even beyond the bruised area. One of them ran beneath her tank-top, probably all the way to her heart.

Its as if her skin has turned transparent…

The doctor grows impatient with her stone stillness. He bandages Felicity's abdomen and gently pulls her tanktop down before telling her in a no-nonsense voice to respect the privacy of their friend and get out of the room.

Sara hardly hears him.

She's never seen a wound like that in all her years. No poison that she knew of could do that.

… None but one.

"Is she…" But her voice catches so she has to clear her throat and try again. "Is she in a coma?"

The redhead considers her with a frown, suspicion making her blue eyes weary. "Her parameters seem to indicate that yes. However unusual, she did slip into a coma."

This is supposed to be good news, but dread is eating away at Sara's heart one bite at a time.

"What's so unusual about it?"

The doctor puts Felicity's hand gently back on the bed and covers her with the pink blanket that Sara and Roy brought her.

"The parameters of her vitals are all in congruence with those of a coma patient. But her brain's wavelength is not." The doc looks starts preparing another syringe. "According to her brain, she's just in deep sleep."

Sara lets those words sink in and the weight of them, of what they might mean, pulls her lids closed with exhaustion.

"It's impossible…" she cannot bear to say it louder than a whisper.

More than that: it's _forbidden!_

The words hiss in her head like the sound of a blade against whetstone, the threat of their mere _possibility_ enough to curdle her blood.

"Sara!"

She startles and turns to Digg. She doesn't know what he sees on her face, if he can read her terror, but it stops him cold. She hasn't had time to conceal it, doesn't even know if she could even if she tried. She feels transparent and shaken.

Oliver is already on his feet, so Sara stalks to him, takes his and and pulls him behind herself, out of the room.

"Move."

She doesn't look to make sure the others are following. Her steps are fast and her breath shallow. She knows her hands are clammy but she doesn't care. So are Oliver's.

Oliver, who pulls at her hand to stop her.

"Where are you going?"

But he sounds absent, his head turned behind him, looking in Felicity's direction.

"Somewhere we can talk. I have to fill you all in."

Not even that seems to catch enough of his attention and Sara wonders how much of him is here with her and how much of him is still in that room, holding on to another dead body.

She shoves open the first door she finds. It happens to be a small storage room, almost empty but for a few shelves. Sara takes it in, looking for cameras, any form of surveillance.

It looks clean, but nevertheless, she takes out her phone and activates the anti surveillance app that Felicity installed there not even seven months ago. If anyone is listening, either by tape or digitally, the sub-audible tone the phone emits would turn all recordings blank.

Oliver is standing still as a statue by the door as Digg and Roy file in, closing the door behind them. She can hardly look at him without flinching at the sight of the blood on his neck, of what it means.

In those few precious moments she has, Sara allows herself to shake loose, and then pulls herself back together. She can't drag this. She has to shove herself past the threshold of disbelief and deal with it because her time is almost up.

She straightens and tries to stop feeling like a fucking caged animal with panic snapping right at her heels.

It's a valiant effort but it goes mostly to waste.

"I don't have a lot of time, so we have to do this quick." Sara says, as plainly as she can. "I have to go in 45 minutes."

"Go? Go where?" John asks. His face is scrubbed dry of the tears there were there before and how he looks just tired and stonily resolute. "What happened back there?"

"Do you have a lead?" Roy follows.

Sara raises her hand to stop them.

"I talk. You listen." But she still has to take a full breath before she can put this out in the open. "I think… I think i know what this is."

And just like that, she has their full attention. Even Oliver's glassy eyes seem to be more focused. Her worry for him pricks at her before she can remind herself that there is no time!

"I'm not sure. I thought I recognized the symptoms when the doc told me about them, but i dismissed it out of hand, because… because it's supposed to be goddamned _impossible_." Sara says, shoving one hand in her hair to get it off her face, for the first time letting her frustration tinge her voice. She clamps down on that fast though. She needs to be in control right now. "There is no way I _can_ be sure until Felicity wakes up."

"Until?"

Oliver's voice is so expressionless it cuts.

"Yeah, until." Sara says, her voice softening. "If this is what I think it is, she should wake up in a couple of days, tops."

Oliver closes his eyes, tries to take a deep breath. His left thumb rubs against his index finger incessantly, and even if she knew literally nothing else about him, that would have told her of the depth of his anxiety.

"Sara…" and if before her name had sounded like a cry for help, now it sounded like exhaustion. "Start talking."

"In the League, they call it 'Lilith's gift'. It's… some kind of poison. I think that's what Felicity has been infected with."

"The docs said it was a virus." Digg notes. "And that they'd never seen anything like it."

Sara shakes her head, lips pursed irritably. "It's possible. I don't know shit about its biology."

Roy's eyes are wide and disbelieving. "What the hell do they have to do with Felicity anyway?"

But the answer was self-explanatory. It could be the League, or it couldn't be. Maybe someone else had gotten hold of their poison. Maybe it had something to do with Felicity, and maybe it didn't.

"Lilith?" Digg says as he sits down heavily on a banged up chair that doesn't even look like it can sustain his weight. "You mean like the demon?"

"In Nanda Parbat, her story is older than that. Lilith is… the feminine aspect of God; the Mother of Demons or whatever. It's old religion, they don't practice it anymore. Bottom line: it's some kind of poison, or virus and I don't know exactly what it is or what it does. Over there they say that… that it changes you."

Oliver takes one step closer. "Changes you how?"

"I don't know!"

Two steps and he's is right in front of her. Anger focuses him - Sara knows that. But it also unhinges him.

He's already breathing too shallow.

Caution reminds her of what it could mean for him, to take one shock too many.

"Changes you _how,_ Sara!"

" _I_ _don't_ _know_ , okay!" She grits out, trying to remain steady. "I am not even supposed to know _this_ much; _nobody_ is. The only reason I do is because Nyssa tells me things sometimes, even things she's not supposed to. … And because stories of death usually tend to get around."

Oliver turns away, rubbing a hand over his face, as if that will help him make sense of things. Roy widens his stance, like he's bracing for impact and Digg pins her with a stern look, expectant.

Sara checks her watch. Forty minutes.

"There used to be this ritual in the League. If a warrior was proved worthy, ' _they would be bestowed Lilith's gift and they would sow death on the world_ '. Or something." The words felt foreign on her lips, coarse when spoken in english, like they had no place to be said aloud in a tongue that couldn't encompass their meaning. Sara had never been a believer, but she can't control the chill that goes up her spine.

"Most people think it's just a story but Nyssa… Nyssa told me that it used to happen once, and that the Ra's that lived before her father banned it, because apparently the only ones that survived the poison long enough to wake up from 'shallow death' were the women."

The words fall from her lips like stones and Sara watches the effect of the ripples they make on her friends' faces. Oliver goes even paler, dry lips parted in such acute shock that she has trouble looking at him in the face.

"So what does that mean?" John asks, confusion clouding his face ever darker.

"According to the stories, those who wake up, they come back changed. And there is something about a blood price… I… it's all I know."

Sara keeps track of Oliver as she talks but he seems frozen, sightless.

Digg just shakes his head, devoid of words.

"You realize how you sound, right?" Roy deadpans.

Sara turns furious eyes at him. "I sound fucking unhinged. Yes, I _know_. But I've seen things that make my definition of impossible a little wider than yours, Roy. Felicity's wound looks _exactly_ like the paintings I've seen on the walls of Nanda Parbat's catacombs. There is no poison that i know of that could do that."

Thirty-eight minutes. Sara's heart starts picking up the pace. She needs to go, but she can't leave!

"Even if this made a _single_ shred of sense - why would the League target Felicity? She is no one to them."

Sara sighs. Bless John Diggle and his ability to cut through bullshit.

"This isn't the League." Sara's answer is immediate and final. This she doesnt doubt, not for a moment.

"You just said…"

"I know what I said, Digg. The _poison_ is of the League, but nobody _in_ the League would ever dare to even _dream_ of doing this. If Ra's al Ghul ever found out…"

Sara's words die in her mouth. God, she doesn't even want to think about it. There is a reason they call him _Demon_ , and Sara doesn't want her friends to ever find out what that is. _Ever_.

"He has killed countless for secrets that were much less precious to him than this." Sara says slowly. She needs them to understand this. "No, this isn't the League …But it's someone close enough to know its secrets, and desperate enough to use them without Ra's' permission."

Oliver eyes catch hers and hold. They're bloodshot and shining of such a bright blue that it's as if flames have been lit inside his skull.

"Who were you hunting, Sara?"

Sara does it quickly, like ripping off a band aid. "Malcolm Merlyn."

They all look at her in the same moment, within the same breath. She'd expected it.

"Malcolm Merlyn is dead." Oliver rasps, sudden fire burning away the numbness. "I killed him. Digg was there."

Sara looks at him without blinking.

"A few months back, the League was informed that he was alive. They tracked him down. Three days ago the scout sent to Starling failed to make contact, so I was sent to investigate, because I know the city… and you. I didn't find the scout's body, but I did find his hideout. And these."

She hands them the photos. Diggle and Roy crowd on them immediately. Oliver barely glances at Merlyn's face on those pictures before he closes his eyes and rubs the heels of his hands against them. He's pacing again.

Sara clenches her jaw, working the words in her mouth before she says them.

"Merlyn resurfaces in Starling, a League scout goes missing and now Felicity gets infected with one of the League's most lethal secrets. I'm not a fan of coincidences, but even if I was, I wouldn't buy this for one."

"Why?" Oliver asks without looking up from the floor, hands linked behind his neck. "Why do _this_? Why Felicity?"

She wants to reach out to him, get him to stop, to breathe, but she knows he'd flinch away. He doesn't want comfort. He wants answers and on this Sara doesn't have any.

"I don't know. Malcolm is a slippery fuck, but there is no way in hell that even someone like him could use this to his advantage. This isn't a safety net – it's a god damned death warrant. If so much as a _whisper_ of this gets to the wrong ears…" Sara gulps her nerves down, grasping at the last straws of her calm, willing her voice to be steady. "Ra's al Ghul will kill _everyone_ , Ollie - starting with Felicity. Everyone involved, everyone suspected. Anyone who helped her; anyone who ever so much as _smiled_ at her, if he feels like it."

The heaviness that her words leave behind is filled with a strange, restless kind of energy. Or maybe it's was just her own tingling hysteria coloring her perception, Sara can't tell at the moment.

"There's no coming back from this – it's _suicide_." She says, almost to herself. "Which is where the whole thing stops making sense, because that's not Merlyn's style."

Oliver's eyes harden to cold ice, hands falling to his side and tightening into fists. He is almost vibrating on the edge of motion, but can't seem to make himself move.

Sara knows the feeling.

"Why is the League after him?" Digg demands, throwing the pictures on the table, disgust lining his face.

"The League has a code and Merlyn broke it despite being released with the promise of upholding it. Which is why he is going to meet death while roasting slowly until he feels the fire all the five hundred and three souls he had no right to take."

Roy's eyes never have been wider. But there is anger in them too.

"What, because Ra's-whoever didn't give Merlyn _permission_ to kill us? Is that what defines right and wrong in the League?" he asks, indignant. And Sara understands, she does, because it was his home that Merlyn tried to level, but that's not the point right now.

"Yes, Roy. _Exactly_ that," Sara stresses. "Do you understands who you're dealing with now?"

"Is there any kind of way Malcolm could use this to get out go the hunt?" Oliver asks, without looking up from the spot on the floor he's been staring at for the past five minutes.

"No, I told you – if _he_ did this, and I think he did, he's digging his own grave. Besides, reckoning for the Undertaking isn't something he can escape or trick his way around. Only Merlyn's blood will pay for what he did."

Sara sees it the moment Oliver stops breathing. It's just about at the same time when Digg's shoulders tense even more and Roy blanches.

"Thea…" his sister's name escaped Oliver's lips in a whisper.

Sara frowns. "What about her?"

Oliver's eyes are wide and alarmed. "Would they hurt her to get to him?"

"Why would they…" But then it hits her and she swears between her teeth heavily. Sara braces herself against the back of one of the chairs. She hasn't even thought about it.

"They don't know. If they find out… they might." She says around a heavy breath. "They might, but it won't come to that."

Oliver starts pacing again, from one corner of the room to another. The movement is so startling because he's been moving at half speed ever since Digg took Felicity from his arms.

"I have to get to Thea," he says urgently, and Sara can see the panic setting in. Her own heart is starting to have trouble maintaining regular beats, as the horrifying realizations start to piece themselves together.

"Yes. And I'll deal with Merlyn," Sara reiterates. "I'll find him, Ollie, I promise. I'll find him before the League does and I'll kill him."

Everyone stiffens momentarily, both Roy and Diggle eyeing Oliver.

"We don't know his plan yet." Digg cautions.

Sara gives him a shuttered look, all steel. "When I get my hands on him, we'll hear about the songs he'll be ready to sing me. Until then, the plan is to catch him before the League does."

"You think he'll try to contact Thea?" Digg asks, taking a step in Oliver's direction, who seems unable to answer, so Sara does it for him.

"Come on Digg. She's young, angry, completely isolated and recuperating from heavy trauma," Sara ticks off, ignoring the way Oliver's face scrunches up at her dry description. "Why _wouldn't_ he go find her? She's primed for manipulation. And Merlyn is just sick enough to do it."

Oliver blanches.

"He wouldn't hurt her," he says, voice low with both trepidation and the vibrating promise of danger. Beneath it, Sara can read his fear like he'd just handed it to her; it sounds more like he's trying to convince himself. "She's his daughter."

"Yeah, she is," Sara sighs. "Tommy was his son too. How caring a parent do you remember Malcolm being with him?"

Oliver finches, upper lip curling in a silent snarl.

"Would she tell you if he already had tried to get to her?" Digg pushes. Oliver shakes his head, gulping visibly.

"I don't know. I haven't spoken to her in two weeks. She's not answering my calls. I don't know." His voice fades off at the end.

Sara starts towards him but he holds a hand up to hold her off, exactly as she'd thought he would.

"Oliver, breathe." Sara says calmly. He just shakes his head.

This time when she goes to him and he tries to hold her off, Sara just takes his hand in both of hers and pulls him toward her.

He's hyperventilating.

"Sit down." Sara tells him firmly.

" _Don't!_ " Oliver growls. It would be threatening if he didn't look like he was about to shake apart if anyone so much as brushed against him too forcefully.

"Sit the fuck down, Ollie, come on. Please." She pulls him with her and though he resists the first moment, when Sara doesn't let go, Oliver follows. He almost crumbles against the wall, sitting so hard and gracelessly on the floor he might as well have fallen. He's been keeping it together by sheer force of will and movement, and like a shark, now that he's stopped he probably feels like the walls of the room are collapsing around him.

Roy and Digg who file out of the room so silently she barely hears them.

She sits between his bent knees, puts a hand on the back of his neck. It's slick with sweat.

"Breathe."

"I don't fucking need this." he says, hissing the words between tightly gritted teeth. "I need to get to Thea. I need… I… Feli…" The words end in a barely suppressed groan that curves him in, like he can't take it.

"What you need is a moment to breathe through this. You've been on the edge of a panic attack ever since…"

His eyes close and he hangs his head, almost as if just think back to it is too much, so Sara doesn't say it. She takes a breath instead. Thirty minutes.

 _Fuck!_

"You need to ride this out. At least for now." She tells him instead. The bitter laugh that leaves him is hurtful, but she can deal with it. Sara takes his hand, puts it just under her throat, so that his fingers can keep track of her pulse.

"We're going to sit here, just you and me. And we're going to breathe until your heart slows down and you don't feel like you're dying anymore, because you're not. And Felicity is not either."

The sound he makes is the closest she's ever heart to a whimper and Sara grits her teeth.

"I'm fine." Oliver bites out the words like he resents them. As if saying it would just make him fine.

"Don't. Don't do that." Sara warns. "You _always_ do that. You pretend things are fine, but they're not. And you can't pretend right now, Ollie. We can't afford it. So say it."

He just shakes his head, little tremors going through his shoulders.

"Felicity almost died. Say it." Sara insists, and though her voice is firm, the thumb that draws slow patterns on his neck is gentle, grounding him, she keeps the hold around his wrist gentle too.

"Felicity almost died, but she's going to wake up. It happened and it's not fine. You're scared and it's fucking you up. But to deal with it you need to say it first, Ollie. "

Oliver slumps even further, his forehead falling on her shoulder. It's not exactly saying the words, admitting it, but it's something. He takes gulping breaths and she tells him to hold it for a few seconds. He keeps sucking shallow breaths so fast that barely any oxygen is getting to his lungs. No wonder he feels like he's drowning.

Sara keeps rubbing the back of his neck.

 _At least there are silver linings to the fact that our nightmares match._

"She's not Shado, or Tommy, or me." She says calmly, making her voice as steady and reassuring as she can, though neither of them comes naturally. "She's not you mom. She's Felicity and she's still here, and we both have such fucked up shit to deal with, but I'm still here too. And i know it's not fair, but we need you. You can't let this drag you down. Just say it."

She can feel his tears through the fabric of her T-shirt. But his breathing is steadier now, and he's not shaking quite so much anymore.

"What difference will that make?"

"Let's just try it."

Oliver takes a ragged breath.

"She died in my arms." he says flatly.

"But she's not dead though. You need to say that too." Sara encourages.

"She's not alive either, Sara."

" _Yet_. She'll wake up." And Sara does believe that. She has to.

"She wanted to go home and i couldn't do anything." He insists, his voice getting more hoarse with every word. "She _stopped breathing_ in my arms, and i _couldn't do anything!_ "

"We can do something _now_." Sara reminds him evenly, but she knows that's not the point. The point is standing by helpless while someone you love gets hurts. When they look at you full of despair and you just stand there, a useless sack of shit, because you can't do anything about it and it kills you, but you just don't die! Death, but without the perks of it being fucking over already.

The point is that both Oliver and Sara had learned that anything is better than that. Anything else will hurt less. Being terrified is better than being helpless. Being in pain is better than being helpless.

 _Anything_ , rather than being watching.

Literally any single thing, just to be able to do something, even if it's stupid. Even if it kills you.

"I'm so tired Sara," even his whisper shows it, draggin fresh tears from him, catching on his words. Sara's eyes sting. "I'm so tired of losing everyone I love."

Sara slumps into him, her forehead on his shoulder.

"Yeah. I know." Sara admits in a whisper.

She knows that exhaustion Oliver is feeling. It's dragged at her bones so often. She too needs a place to rest for a while. So they stay that way, like two brackets holding all their deep dark secrets. The silence that blooms between them is almost restful; Perceptible the way emptiness can be only after too much screaming.

Sara takes a deep breath, exhales it slowly. She takes his hand because she wants to hold on to something, and she's happy to find that it's not shaking anymore nor is it quite as clammy as before.

"You've still got John and Roy. Thea too, she'll come around. You'll find her and you'll fix things, both of you, because you love each other. And you still have me, Ollie. I'm still here." She wants him to remember that. She's not much, but she's all she's got and they've been that before for each other. It's familiar solace. "I'm still here and you have to trust me. I know what I'm doing."

"I trust you." he breathes out. An exhausted truth, but an immediate one.

"We'll work together and we'll get through this."

Oliver is so silent, so still, that Sara can practically see the hope slipping through his fingers like sand.

She knows what he's thinking.

"She'll wake up."

He stops breathing for a moment so her fingers stop rubbing the back of his neck and press on his skin hard enough to remind him to take a breath.

When he does, it's harsh.

"What if she doesn't?"

"She _will_." Sara insists, with all the stubbornness she is capable of.

Oliver just shakes his head.

"And then what? Merlyn, the League…"

"Give yourself a break Ollie," Sara snaps, but doesn't move her head from his shoulder. "One problem at a time. We'll burn those bridges when we come to them."

He huffs. It's almost a laugh. Well, it's twice removed from a laugh's second cousin, but it's close enough.

"I don't think that's how the saying goes, Sara."

"I don't give a shit."

Oliver squeezes her hand tight and she squeezes back.

"We'll protect her." He says then, and it's as if he's saying to himself. "We'll protect them both."

Protect them…

Sara's wants to say yes. Yes, of course we'll protect them. Yesh, because she loves Felicity too and she'd do anything for Thea as well, because she's Oliver's lifeline as much as Laurel is Sara's. Yes, because at this point, she just wants Oliver to be okay and is ready to give him anything for it. Almost.

That 'almost' stops Sara from saying yes.

It reminds her of Laurel telling her with a glin in her eye that she'd taken up taekwondo now, as well as kickboxing and that it was helping her deal with a lot of shit, as well as helping her actually hold her own for a full five minutes against her League-trained little sister. She remembers the punch her sister had landed and _God_ , that smile afterwards, so brilliant. So fucking proud.

"I was actually thinking more along the lines of teache them to protect themselves there, Ollie." Sara finally says. Protecting women in a world where men think nothing of hurting them doesn't really help anyone.

"I thought you were trying to help me deal with my anxiety, not give me reasons for it."

Sara shrugs. "Tometo, tomato."

It a bit longer until he speaks again. By the time he does, Sara knows he's lingering just because he can, till the last moment.

"You have to go, don't you?" It's not even a question at this point.

"Yeah."

He signs, but then nods. "Okay."

Sara moves her hand from his neck to his shoulders and they straighten almost at the same time, to look at each other. She wipes the blotchy parts of her face carelessly, just as Oliver passes both hands over his face.

"Remember, we have a plan." Sara says, deliberately slow. "You get to Thea, bring her here and keep her safe. I get to Merlyn, find out what he knows. No deviations unless discussed, no stupid shit allowed."

Oliver just looks at her. But Sara doesn't let up. She knows he has a tendency to make rash decisions when he's feeling overwhelmed and they really can't afford that right now.

Finally, Oliver nods. And then he sighs.

"I have no idea who to make Thea come back here. She doesn't want to, and frankly she shouldn't have to."

Sara stands up and holds out a hand to him, to pull him to his feet too.

"She'll have to. It's not a matter of choice, it's for her safety."

"Yeah, and how do it get her to see that?"

Sara looks at him with a confused frown. "Just tell her the truth, Ollie."

The notion seems to stagger him.

"I can't tell her I'm the Arrow, Sara. I…"

Sara huffs. "Look, it's your choice on that front. But at this point, it's her life on the line so she deserves to know the truth about why, at least. How you repair your relationship with her is up to you."

He looks away, does not seem the least bit reassured.

"I can't leave Felicity alone here." it's almost as if it has just occurred to him, and part of it would be funny, if he weren't so fucking tragic. He can't fathom anyone else wanting her as safe as he does so it probably doesn't occur to him that Felicity will be just as safe with Digg and Roy and the freaking Flash guarding over her.

When Sara points this out to him as they open the door and get into the corridor, he just blinks and then shakes his head.

"Right. Of course."

Digg and Roy are just down the hall, looking into Felicity's room. Everything suddenly seems to fall into place and that small angle of quiet that Sara had rested on for those few moments before shatters completely.

This is real. This is happening.

Their friend almost died. They don't know if she'll wake up and even if she does, they don't know what will happen to her.

Sara balls her hands into fists, grits her teeth. Whatever it is, she's going to be where she belongs: between her family and whatever is coming for them.

"She's stable, for now." Digg says as he leans back on the chair.

Sara nods.

"Good. that's… that's good new." but she doesn't know what else to say so she drops it. "Digg, I have a couple of flight plans and patterns that need analyzing. You think Lyla would let me borrow some ARGUS tech-support peeps for a few hours while I'm en route?"

Digg gives her a look that is both unimpresssed and amused at the same time. "For this, Lyla would let you borrow ARGUS."

Sara manages a small smile and passes him the USB with the information.

"Let's trace Thea's phone too while we're at it, just to be sure," Digg adds and throws a careful look at Oliver, who nods stiffly.

"Ok then. I'm going now. You guys know how to contact me."

John nods. "I'll call you when I have something."

Sara turns to Oliver, lays a hand on his forearm and tightens her grip, hoping to be able to press her feelings his skin with just her touch.

Then she walks out.


	11. Chapter 11

My underground  
sadness. Sleeping carcass hanging  
on your windowsill sadness.  
My hollowed tree sadness. My  
favorite brick tied to my favorite  
ankle sadness.  
Bottom of the river sadness.  
Once a year hunger sadness.  
I pick a day and I eat the wood  
from the walls. I wear my curtains  
as a veil and marry my empty bed.  
My abandoned building sadness.  
Dirty sheets sadness. Teeth at  
the throat sadness.  
I pick a day and I swallow every  
stone that's ever been thrown.  
I pick a day and I gnaw at the  
floorboards.

 **Caitlyn Siehl,** The Sadness

She asked him once, if he had any happy stories. He didn't have an answer for her then, couldn't possibly have thought of any, but he does now. It's not really happy stories… more like, calm ones. He collects them, tiny moments that he can go back to and that brick by brick build a dam against the darkness of his thoughts.

The four of them at her apartment, five different kinds of takeouts crowding her tiny coffee table. The quiet of the Lair when she's the only one there and he can actually sleep, lulled into unconsciousness by the rhythm of her tapping fingers. Sparring with Roy and him getting something right, being so proud of finally making some progrees. The quiet between him and John when they just sit and have a drink.

Small things that settle him into the life he is living.

But here in her dark room, where she sleeps too deeply and her heart beats too slowly… here there are no happy stories.

Here there's just an abnormally still Felicity and her chipped nail polish.

It's such a stupid detail to focus on, but grief is a strange land. It warms anyone's perception of normal.

After Sara left, Oliver used all the strength he had in him to ask Cisco to locate Thea for him, after she didnt answer her phone for the sixth time. And then he just… collapsed.

He didn't want to go back to that room. He wanted to distance himself physically from that place and take Felicity with him, but at the same time, he really couldn't think of anywhere else to go. There were a thousand things to do, and he didn't have the energy for a single fucking one of them. So he drags himself to the chair by her bed, and crashes there. He realizes he hasn't moved for hours only when he looks up to see John sitting on the other side of her bed, and notices that it's night again outside.

He doesn't want to sleep, ( he's too fucking afraid to close his eyes no matter how tired he is ) but ends up collapsing anyway, folded on the side of her bed. In his mind, he's just waiting for Cisco.

He dreams of that night.

He dreams of doing it right. Of not being afraid, not being a coward with her over and over again. He dreams of leaning down just when she'd expected it, and kissing her on Verdant's parking lot in the middle of the night.

That's how it should have happened. And in his dreams he gets it right.

It's would have been soft, nothing but gentle. It would have been everything he wanted to show her, all his better self. And he would have taken her hand and gone back where it was safe, and stayed there all night. Just the two of them.

That's what Oliver dreams of.

But his dreams are never silent. Never.

In his dreams, more often than not, he hears himself screaming in the night, through a storm. Hears the unbearable whooshing of the open sea, or Slade's voice. He knows, even in his nightmares, how different a gunshot sounds when it's in open water and when it's in the closed woods. It snaps him awake in a cold sweat every time, no matter which one it is his brain shoves at him.

'Both my children will live... Close your eyes baby' .

He hears Thea's screams of terrified despair, they crawl under his nails like glass shards.

But what wakes him up this time is not a scream. It's not loud and it's not violent.

It's the way she lets her arms fall to her sides from where they'd been sneaked around his torso, holding on tight. It's the way she leans into him, swaying, her face against his neck, her body leaning into his like she's giving up on staying on her feet. Her name echoes in his head, in the foundry, so loud, even if it's just a whisper. And when Oliver leans back to catch her face between his hands, to look at her, he finds her pale, and cold, and that little lining of blood staining the inside of her lips.

The ground disappears from beneath his feet when she says his name.

She says his name and it's helpless, it's the end, and Oliver startles awake breath, his stomach somersaulting, as if it still thinks he's falling. His heart is trying to fly out of his breastbone, pounding relentlessly.

Oliver passes a hand over his face.

His mind has never given him any quarter but where it usually fuels despair now it just ignites anger. They're a mockery of his own cowardice.

He'd thought he really couldn't love her in any way that would ever leave her without bruises. He still thought that… He'd been so convinced that he'd hurt her just by being himself, same as he had hurt every single person he'd tried to be with, one way or another, and that had made him a coward. He hadn't even wanted to try.

But if he'd been brave enough; if he'd had even a fraction of faith in himself that she seems to have in him and thought 'maybe i can do this', instead of 'i'm going to fuck this up because it's my nature and it will ruin us', Felicity wouldn't be laying here, on this bed, in this dark room, her heart barely beating.

And then he has to laugh, bitter and hollow, because it's not as if he's suffered some bullshit illumination. Nothing has changed. … But even ruin would have been better than this.

He'd started relationships for worse reasons, it was true. And they'd all ended in the dust, taking pieces of him along the way.

He couldn't be that careless with Felicity. She was too important to lose.

His heart lurches in his chest. He had though. She'd slipped right through his fingers, like smoke.

Careless…

Oliver wraps his fingers gently around her wrist, counting her heartbeats.

There has been no word from Sara. Nothing. Thea hadn't called him back either. He should go out and search for Cisco but he can't really move. He's trying so, so hard not to fall into the mire of his own mind again, but it's claws are deep into him. it's right there at the corner of his eye, waiting. All he can do is stare straight ahead and ignore it.

Fear is not new to Oliver, but coupled with this unbelievable sense of helplessness… it brings up the worst in him, and the worst he's live thought. He feels more stranded here than he ever was on the island and the helplessness of it corrodes him from the inside. But there is nowhere else he feels he can go either. He's strapped in place, and being pulled apart at the same time.

Something will have to give…

In the end, it takes Cisco two days to locate Thea. Felicity opens her eyes in half that time. Twentyfour hours, on the dot.

If before that moment Sara's words hadn't really sunk in, what happens after drives them home like the slice of a knife to the side.

Waking up has never felt quite like this before.

She's had hard hours for more than two years now. Times when she steps in her apartment on a saturday night so late that it is almost early and just pases out on the bed, forgetting to close the window and the curtains. So it will be a noisy sunday morning cutting through her sleep even though she is bone-tired, pulling at her scratchy eyelids, insisting ' wake up wake up ' with a cacophony of a thousand different noises that don't care if she does, but won't let her sleep either.

It's a bit like that, this awakening… but harsher . Deeper sleep, slower awakening. It's crawling your way up from a dark pool, with the water fighting back to keep you under, but without really wanting you there.

There's nothing welcoming about the depths Felicity finds herself in, but at first she doesn't really want to leave them. She's the kind of tired that reaches all the way into unconsciousness, she doesn't think she can leave it. Her eye's still itch as if she never closed them, her body heavy with exhaustion that pulls her every bone, weighting her even further down the bed.

But her senses keep pricking tiny annoying holes into her sleep, stubborn tendrils of awareness cutting through the darkness. The prickle of her sweater, the burn of her palms and the itch of her feet. Noises that she can't tell apart by name punch straight through her skull, ringing in her head, a nameless cacophony. There is numbness, parts of her body that feel like they're missing, but there is also aching without any awareness of where the hurt is coming from. Her mouth is dry and she needs to pee too, so badly that she wiggles on the bed, pushing her thighs together.

Felicity drags herself inch by inch through this state of drugged awareness, for what feels like hours. ( later, she will be told it lasted perhaps one hour, since she made her first sound of discomfort, until she opened her eyes in the dark ) She's not conscious enough to know that her restlessness is actually fear. She just shivers at it's bitter taste. She doesn't know where her body is and why it feels so heavy, as if her every limb is twice its weight. Can't find her eyes with any kind of precision that it would take to actually open them.

Words get lost from her brain to her mouth, make it out as tiny little groans that hurt her throat and she feels the sting of irritation behind her eyes, wetting them.

Warmth finds her as she struggles, on one side of her face, soft and rough both, human. Familiar.

A hand around her hand - and there it is, she finds her limp, chances that surety all the way up her arm, to her face where her lips are. Where her eyes are.

One moment she is in darkness, and the next the spark has lit her brain and she opens her eyes as if she always knew how - and closes them almost instantly, the burn of the light so harsh that tears slide down her temples as a heavy breath parts from her lips.

The light is so bright it burns through her eyelids.

But then it's gone and she can breathe again.

She can breathe again!

Felicity flexes her fingers around the hand holding hers. She knows that hand.

John…

His name doesn't make it out of her mouth. Her throat is too try; talking scrapes at it.

"It's ok, Felicity," he says, and Felicity flinches. Why is he shouting? "Don't try to talk yet. We're in the STAR labs medical wing. You're safe and you're okay."

She takes another breath and knows this time just by the scent of his skin and soap clothes that he's there.

But there is someone else there also.

Felicity lets her head turn a bit to the right, where Oliver is standing. She knows it's Oliver, knows it without needing to open her eyes with the kind of certainty that she knows she has ten fingers and toes still ( the kind of certainty that her senses translate into her mind like they never have before, and that she is too shaken still to question ). She takes another breath and there he is.

And it's just like being on the field again, where among violence and uncertainty she knows her team will keep her safe. The thought - the surety of their presence there - settles her more than any words could have.

"You can open your eyes now. I turned off the light." Digg says gently.

Felicity huffs, and then regrets it. Her chest hurts. But she does take John at his word and dares to open her eyes again.

She blinks against their blurriness, and then blinks again, stunned at all the details she is capable of taking in.

It assaults her, matches objects with the noises buzzing in her head. Her friends, the room, her own body and the machines humming by it. It's never been so… she thinks maybe she has a fever still. She takes in the luminescence of the corridor beyond, where the daylight filtering in is so bright it seems violent. There's a steady drumming she doesn't recognize moving in two different rhythms and in the next breath, as the acrid scents of a dozen different medical concoctions pierce her nose and make her eyes water again.

Felicity squeezes her eyes closed, tries to hold her breath. For a moment it's too much. She just wants to go to sleep again.

She tries to talk, but ends up coughing. John holds out a glass with a straw on it. The water inside it sloshes heavily. Felicity tries to breath in without breathing in the whole room, braces herself. she hates being sick with a passion, hates how dependent it makes her.

She takes a gulp of water anyway though, and then another, her parched throat almost sizzling for how thirsty she is.

"Easy." John cautions.

Felicity looks at him. He's looking back as if he hasn't seen her in ages, shoulders slumped and his face lined with exhaustion, but still, he smiles at her brighter than he ever has.

Felicity manages a smile back.

"Why are you shouting?" she finally asks, her voice so far removed from its usual sound that it's almost funny.

Confusion flits across John's face. He shares a quick look with Oliver - Oliver who seems to have crawled from under some rock, looking so pale she thinks he's sick too, his lips bloodless and the circles under his eyes so dark they almost reflect the blue of his irises.

"I'm sorry." John says then, much more softly.

Roy comes in in that moment and there is such honest surprise on his face at seeing her awake that for the first time Felicity wonders how long she'd slept for. Roy means to say something but Digg holds his hand up, puts a finger t his lips. She sees him clearly even though he's just at the edge of her eyeline.

Roy steps at the foot of the bed, a lopsided smile on his face and mouths 'hey Blondie' to her with a wink.

Felicity looks at them carefully, their faces and the way their eyes fit over her restlessly, their placid expressions… It's as if they're trying to keep her calm but as usual they're not doing a good job at pretending.

And it's not that Felicity's not scared or worried. She is.

But… she really doesn't like the looks on their faces right now, and really, she just doesn't know what else to do.

"I bet I could make you sing 'soft kitty' to me right now." She says with difficulty. "As a round, too."

Digg hangs his head helplessly, but she can hear his laugh (she can hear the thickness of tears it hides too), and roy grins, but Oliver… Oliver just looks at her with endless eyes. His smile looks so hollow that it makes even Felicity's pained one fall.

"Please don't." he says, straight face and shiny-eyed. "I don't think either of us would survive Digg's singing voice."

"You wish you had my singing voice, Queen."

Oliver groans very softly. They play her game almost as if they'd practiced, and Felicity feels her heart swell will warmth.

She's so lucky. So lucky in her friends.

"No seriously blondie, I would pay to have you do that." Roy says, glancing at Oliver.

Felicity raises one lazy eyebrow.

"Huh. Since when can you afford me?"

"I can't. But Digg can."

John's smile widens, brushes back her hair from her forehead.

Oliver steps closer. He's trying to keep his face so placid, but Felicity can see the strain beneath as if it were a live string pulled so tight it vibrates.

"How are you feeling?"

Felicity takes the time to consider an answer.

She feels… foreign in her own body, she realises, as she carefully takes stock of herself. She doesn't have the words to explain it though. She doesn't even know what she's feeling exactly, other than the fact that she is overwhelmed with it and has to concentrate just to make out their voices form the hum of every other noise around them. It bothers her, but she's scared to ask them what is going on.

What if she had brain damage? She doesn't remember what happened. She just remembers falling asleep, and then crawling back up from it.

Felicity tries to lift her hand again, but barely manages to move her fingers.

"Heavy." Felicity finally says, because it's the easiest answer to give. She does feel heavy, like someone filled her bones with iron while she was knocked out.

"Your muscles are just tired, that's all. And so are you. You'll get your strength back in no time." John explains.

"I'm kinda hungry too, actually."

That makes the three of them smile for real for the first time.

"Your stomach is a bottomless pit, Barbie."

Felicity raises both eyebrows. "Look who's talking."

"I'm training." Roy protests, his voice raising a bit, before he catches himself. "And still growing."

She snorts. "Sideways maybe."

She counts and mentally fist-bumps. Two genuine smiles now. Things are looking up.

"What is that noise?" she finally asks, face scrunching up in both concentration and frustration.

It's like beating drums in the background. It's not loud but something about it focuses her, in a way she is not at all used to. Like the beating of fingers on a keyboard - that same sense of familiarity, except this one was baseless. It wasnt familiar. It just felt that way, like the weirdest deja vu ever.

The three of them look a bit alarmed and the fact that one simple question can get them to that state is a bit unnerving to Felicity.

"What noise?" Oliver asks, leaning a bit into her line of sight.

She's about to answer him, she really is, but then his face hovers close and she is looking at him and… she sort of… loses her threat?

It's funny how it works. One moment that soft drumming sound just a humming background noise and the next moment, she focuses on it and it settles on her senses like a blanket.

An invitation.

Felicity releases a long breath, helpless and confused, too tired to resist the pull of her body.

Her eyes smooth down from Oliver's face to his neck and there she finds his pulse, pounding beneath his skin.

Her breaths grow heavy.

She's smarter than most people in any room but the knowledge that infuses her mind in that moment comes to her the way most instincts do: from the dark and without name. Only certainty.

"Is that… is that your heartbeat?" She asks between heavy breaths.

Oliver's eyes go wide. "What?" the word is breathless and disbelieving.

Felicity doesn't need an answer though: she already has one. Her thoughts steamroll her like a truck, feeble fingers gathering the sheets in loose fists as nervousness grows. Her own heart starts drumming faster. It's not possible , but it's true. She knows it, she feels the truth of it as undeniable as the sky looking blue is undeniable - and that frightens her.

Even as she says the words though, Oliver's face changes, the surprises emptying his face of expression and his heart… his heart changes rhythm. Faster now. Restless, just as her own was.

"Ok this…" She tries to clear her throat but it hurt. "This is really weird so someone please explain."

John's hand on her shoulder is warm and heavy. The sensation of it is a clear bell right by her ear.

"We will, but you have to stay calm. We'll tell you everything we know, okay?"

Felicity grits her teeth. They hurt too. Great.

She nods.

"Too tired to babble my way through anything anyway." She says absentmindedly.

"I should go call the doc." Roy volunteers. John nods and he goes.

His steps are heavy all the way to the door, and when the mechanic thing slides open, Felicity can hear the tiny scratching sounds that she's never heard before as it drags on the little bits of dirt on the floor.

She purses her lips, closes her eyes.

'Do not panic' seems to be a good refrain to stich to, for now.

"How long was I asleep." she asks, trying to concentrate on something else.

"You weren't asleep." Oliver says slowly. He sounds so exhausted, even his voice is rough with it. "You were in a coma."

John's disapproval rolls off him in waves, but Felicity turns to look at him with wide eyes, so Oliver keeps his eyes firmly on her.

"Oh."

"What's the last thing you remember?"

Felicity thinks about it. The memory is like a bad taste in her mouth. She just wants to heave it out.

The last thing she remembers is being afraid. Being desperate. In pain.

The very last thing she remembers is thinking she was dying.

Felicity gulps that down.

"I'm not sure." she says carefully. "How long…"

"Twentyfour hours." John says. "On the dot."

Felicity expels a long breath. Her breastbone still hurts like someone kicked her real hard on it.

"Okay then. Honestly, out of all the weird things we've seen, this isn't really the first on that list." she says, and though she's trying to sound lighter, her smile is wane, her voice shakes. "Definitely top five though."

Oliver huffs. "You have no idea."

They tell her everything they know and what they don't, and she just sits up on her cushions and stares ahead, takes it all in.

She doesn't say a single thing, but goes paler when they mention Merlyn, grits her teeth. Her eyes shine with anger, but she's too weak to do anything about it yet. She can't even fist her hands yet.

"For now you are… perfectly healthy actually. Your parameters are top notch." Caitlin says with a smile, voice pitched barely above a whisper. She's just gone over Felicity's whole medical condition with a tone of definite positivity, but after what happened Olvier doesn't really trust any of it.

"There are some irregularities - like your hypersensitivity - that with your permission, I'd like to check."

"Yeah, hearing someone's heartbeat from across the room could be considered an irregularity." she says absently. Oliver can tell just by the veiled look in her eyes that her brain is already somewhere else.

Caitlin shifts on her feet. "Yes that's… that's strange i admit, but come on - i work with Barry. I've seen weirder. Don't think of the worst yet, Felicity."

"We'll run some tests. I promise that I'll stick to the least invasive procedures i know of."

She stops and waits for some response from Felicity, but instead of looking at the doc, Felicity focuses her eyes on him. She's still so pale but her eyes are alight.

"I need my tablet." She says, voice so rough it breaks every two words.

Oliver just stares.

Caitlin takes a step forward, suddenly very serious.

"Felicity, did you understand what I…"

"I understood everything." Felicity says, patience thinning right there in front of their eyes. "I want teh tests. I want to know what's gong on with me. But right now, I need my tablet."

Digg doesn't wait to be told again. He hands it to her.

She has some trouble holding on to it, but then she just leans forward with a grimace and balances it on her thighs.

"I can access the Foundry's system from here." She mumbles, fingers moving on the screen so much slower than usual.

Out of everything that she's heard so far, that is the thing that makes her scrunch up her face and close her eyes, taking deep breaths as if to calm down.

When she opens them, her determination is written in hard lines across her face.

"I should be able to find Thea. Hand me your phone Oliver."

He reaches for it without even thinking about it.

"Dont you need your glasses?" He says softly as he sets the phone close by her table.

Her glasses are the first thing she reaches for, even before she's really up. In the thirty minutes she has been awake, she hasn't asked for them once.

Felicity looks up, her hand going up as if to push the frames of her glasses up her nose and seeming startled to find them missing. He's seen her do that before. Sometimes she forgets that she took them off, but it's not like that now.

Her eyes blink at him, lips open with something that looks a lot like fear crawling in her eyes but then she shakes her head as if that's enough to banish the feeling and goes back to her tablet.

"I'm going to find Thea." She tells the screen resolutely. "And you're going to get her."

"Felicity…" Digg tries, but she shakes her head.

"Doable things now. Everything else later."

Digg looks at him over the top of her head. It's avoidance and it's also a situation they know well, but neither can really say anything because this - focusing on the immediate and on the damage control - this is how the survive when it comes to cataclysmic events. It's ingrained now, as deeply set in Felicity as military and experience have drilled them in Digg and Oliver both.

It would be unfair to take away from her the only way she has of coping when they were the ones that taught it to her in the first place.

She sighs heavily. "Stop that. You're not talking,but i can hear it."

John looks away, Oliver looks at the side of Felicity's head. He wishes, feebly, that he could tell her to rest and take it easy but he's too relieved for it. He needs her to find Thea, yes, but it's not that. Not really. Cisco is working on that. It's the fact that seeing her back to doing what she does best, in a setting that is familiar enough that is the only thing that settles his mind for the first time in days. Seeing her like this, stubborn and awake and dipped up to her head in code, in that place that is her solace as much as an arrow between his fingers is his, makes him breathe easier. And Oliver keeps looking, hoping that the way she looks now: tired but relentless and alive, is how she'll look next time he closes his eyes. He doesn't even blink for wanting to burn the sight into his brain.

A big part of him is so intensely relieved that Felicity won't have to remember those last moments and how frightened she'd been. That she won't remember that desolation he'd only seen a fraction of in her eyes, which must have been big enough to swallow cities whole inside her.

A small, whispering part of him though, is already crippling under the weight of that knowledge, and Oliver knows himself well enough to know it will never leave him. He feels lonely in it, but knows that for the sake of keeping that same feeling from her, his legs would never give, and he'd take that solitude to the grave, with the rest of his secrets.

It takes Felicity four hours to find Thea's location. Oliver doesn't really hold it against her that Thea lied to him. it would be fairly hypocritical if he did, and he realizes that. But he does want to know why however. He'll ask her once he manages to bring her home. He still has no idea how on earth he'll do that.

Cisco walks in five minutes after Felicity's tablet pings, and when they tell him that they got it already, thank you, he purses his lips, grumbling about 'unfairness' all the way out.

That is the first time Felicity smiles since she woke up.

He doesn't know what to say as he prepares to leave. She's just sitting there on her bed, looking smaller than usual and he just.. hovers.

"I'll call you when I know something more about whatever..." she looks away, shakes her head like she still can't believe it then makes a wide gesture towards herself with her hand. She's getting better at moving, just like Digg said she would. "Whatever is going on here. With me."

Bye. I'll call you.

It's such a shockingly normal thing to say that for a moment it manages to make it's way through the restrain and numbness he's been building brick by brick since Sara left, Warmth laps at his angles like a warm wave.

All Oliver can do is nod.

"Have you figured out what you're going to tell Thea?"

No. No he hasn't. Just the thought of it makes his palms sweat. "Sara thinks i should tell her the truth."

Felicity contemplates that. There is no surprise or alarm in her face and that's how Oliver knows that she's thought about it before.

"It's a good place to start, considering how things were when she left." She says softly, mindful of the minefield that his family is in his head. She treads softly on these topics for him, and he knows it's a lot of effort, for someone who always speaks her mind as bluntly as she does.

"I don't know." He doesn't know anything anymore. He's been telling himself that he'll know what to tell Thea when he sees her face, but the truth beneath that thought is another. He'll know how much to lie, when he sees how angry she still is at him. How much he can get away with it.

It's just a thought. He hasn't made up his ind. He thinks he'll be better than that. He wants to be.

But he knows himself. He knows that whenever it hurts, he will want to take the path that carves him up the least. He'll want to make that easy choice. And just wanting it is enough for Oliver to fall into it sometimes.

"I'll see you soon, Oliver."

Felicity's words derail his thoughts and that's when he notices that he's been standing on the doorway of her room (that fucking Oliver had it his way, he'd burn it to the ground) and hasn't said anything in probably a few minutes. And Felicity, she looks so unhappy beneath that tilt of her lips that he just can't tear himself away.

So he walks further into the room and takes her hand on impulse. She lets him.

"It's going to be okay, Felicity."

Her smile, the way she looks at him, makes him feel completely stripped. The awareness in her eyes of what he means, what he's doing make the words feel ridiculous, but he doesn't let go of her hand.

He doesn't want to leave her hopeless. He can't.

"Say that again." Felicity dares him, eyes smiling. "Try to believe it this time."

Oliver gulps. How did this go from him offering reassurance to him needing it? He tries something closer to the truth this time. Something he believes in. "Whatever this is, we'll figure it out. Together."

She nods. "Better. Believability factor way higher this time."

His chuckle is breathless: unwilling to laugh but helpless against her. He leans into her space, doesn't miss the way she stills immediately. His lips ind her forehead, just at the edge of her hairline and lingers as much as he dares to. it's not much.

Felicity stiffens even further, but then slouches with a small groan.

"What?"

She rolls her eyes. "I stink."

She didn't, but didn't smell of a spring morning either. She smells of iodine and disinfectant, and beneath that of unwashed hair.

"Not the worst thing I've ever smelled." Oliver says offhandedly with a shrug that is trying too hard to be nonchalant.

She scrunches up her nose at him, pushes his hand away as far as she can, and Oliver as to purse his lips to hold back the smile. He has no idea how she gets these things out of him, never has.

"Not exactly comforting, Oliver."

"Not really the point, Felicity."

She opens her mouth no doubt to quip something interesting at him, but then she catches his eye and stops. The look on her face softens, settles, and that look falls in him like a stone.

All lightness leaves him.

"I'll see you soon."

Felicity's nod is shallow. "Yeah."


	12. Chapter 12

Brave girl in a pink skirt  
with her steady hands.  
Brave girl in the elevator.  
Brave girl with dimples.  
Brave girl who loves the boy,  
who loves  
the boy so much

Brave girl with an arrow,  
in her car behind a bus,  
in the forest, in her bedroom.

Brave girl with her love so big  
it looks like her shadow.  
Brave girl with the dog in her  
arms outside of the hospital,  
with the eyelash on her cheek

 **Caitlyn Siehl** **,** Brave Girl

After her scan and bloodwork and about five other different kinds of prodding, Caitlin walks into her room with a thick folder in her hand.

"So far everything looks fantastic." she says as she steps closer to Felicity's side. Felicity doesn't pretend to understand all that the charts say, so she doesn't bother with them and chooses instead to listen to Caitlin attentively.

"Your bodies functions and internal organs are perfectly healthy. No damage from the… the organ failure that led you into a coma. It's like your body healed itself." Caitlin says, but the high note of cheerfulness in her voice strikes Felicity as decidedly fake and only there for her benefit. Caitlin isn't the least bit as relaxed about that as she's trying to look.

"We'll know more specifics once doctor Wells is finished with the genetic exam, but for now, you're good. Your metabolism is running a bit faster than usual, but that's to be expected since you're recovering."

Felicity nods. She is waiting for the actual bad news, so all this, while relieving, is not what she wanted to know.

She wants to know what is wrong.

Her set face as she stares at Caitlin unblinkingly might have told the doc that.

"Your sertonin levels are a bit low right now. Serotonin acts as an inhibitor against impulsive behavior, but it generally tends to fluctuate after a shock to the organism so I'm not very worried. And your amygladea is about twice the size of a normal - which isn't bad , per se. It's quite like barry actually, so don't be freaked out." Caitlin hurries to add.

"That doesn't mean it's not weird." Felicity says softly.

Caitlin's eyes are wide and honest. "No it is. It is a bit out of the ordinary, yes. But i think we both know that doesn't mean it'll be a bad thing, necessarily."

Felicity felt her lips curve up slightly.

"What does it mean though?" Digg asks, from where he's sitting in his chair, arms crossed over his chest and listening with a frown on his face. Felicity thinks he's taking all this way better than she is. She hasn't quite managed to move past the comprehension stage just yet. Everything Caitlin is saying seems to either fly over her head or straight through her chest.

"The amygladea are pair of almond-shaped nuclei located deep within the brain." Caitlin explains and she turns around, shows them the back of her her and touches a point about two inches above her neck. "They're about here, and in the middle of your head, and through them the brain processes and memorizes emotional reactions and identifies danger."

Felicity frowned, and Caitlin gulped.

"It could be nothing. But theoretically speaking… it could also mean that you'd be able to anticipate danger a lot faster than normal people, and it would result in faster reflexes. Have you been feeling any of that?"

Felicity doesn't know how to answer that. She doesn't really feel like she has faster reflexes. She feels exhausted. Though not as bad as when she woke up, her every movement tires her out still and though she is starving, they won't let her eat anything until her exams are complete. Her throat hurts and everything is either too loud or too bright. Her brain is working even more furiously than usual and she keeps noticing weird stuff like Caitlin's flushing skin when she's put on the spot, everyone's fluctuating tone of voice and eye movement, but it doesn't really mean anything to her. Her mind has always focused on the abnormal and worked tangentially.

"I'm not really sure," Felicity says finally.

Caitlin's expression shifts to understanding.

"That's okay, you don't have to figure it out right now. You're also highly photosensitive… all your senses seem to more easily stimulated, actually." Caitlin's frown is almost imperceptible, but Felicity catches it. She can tell just by the way her friend's voice gets a bit lower that she's worried.

"Yeah that was… weird." Felicity says, as she thinks about the way she can still hear everyone's heartbeat if she concentrates enough, and how she's heard Caitlin's heels walking down the hall for a full five minutes before she appeared on her door.

Felicity bites her lip and tries to put the full measure of her concentration on where she is now, what she feels and hears now, so that she doesn't get even more freaked out.

"Is it affecting your concentration? Do you feel dizzy? Nauseous?"

Felicity shakes her head.

"No." And she huffs a laugh, but it's so devoid of hilarity that it sounds bitter even to her own ears. "My head is always kind of a mess and loud, so it's not really bothering me. I'm still hungry though."

And she gives Caitlin a hopeful look. The doc smiles.

"That's' good. That's a good sign. The moment doctor Wells tells me we're done with the initial tests, I'll bring you something delicious myself." she says, nodding. "In the meantime, your sensory reactions are much higher than usual but also lower now than it was when you woke up, and keeps lowering, so you should be heading towards stabilisation."

By the time the plane touches down, Oliver is almost ready to jump out of his own skin.

He talks to nobody the whole way, locking his muscles in place so that he wouldn't jump every time someone brushed by him in the airport. He fucking hates crowds and right now he's not even close to being in the vicinity of the state of mind it takes to deal with them.

He feels more focused now that he has a purpose, that he's moving and his body is actually doing something with the energy corroding his bones, but he also feels like he's moving in slow motion. Nothing is happening fast enough: the plane, the chest at the border, the car.

He is restless and growing even more anxious, his thoughts scattering in a hundred different directions. Felicity, John, Sara, Merlyn wherever the fuck he is, Thea, Merlyn… Felicity!

He can't even think about her, about what he just left behind, without flinching so he avoids the thought of her completely. He has to, in order to be able to do this.

Everything has it's own space in his head, so he puts Felicity gently in one of those rooms and closes the door softly behind him. It had to stay there for now.

Why did Thea lie? Why didn't she call him back, why didn't she contact him.

There could be so many reasons for it.

Their mother died six months ago, right in front of them both. He touches on the thought with the clinical detachment that would allow him to keep breathing through it. He missed the funeral. He let his sister go when she wanted to get away from him and the poisonous fumes that surrounded him.

Oliver wouldn't blame her, if Thea held him as much responsible for what happened that night in the woods as she held Slade.

He'd be right there on the same page with her, in fact.

But his sister… she had reached her breaking point six months ago. And she had made the choice that best suited her own needs.

Oliver admired her for it. He always had admired Thea's strength. Her single mindedness. Even when it made her annoying. Even when she was clawing at him to just be there for her, when he first got back. Her insidious and relentless insistence that he be a brother had reminded him of what it felt to be one.

So what right did he have really, to ask her to come back to her nightmares? How would he ever find a way to do this, if he wasn't even sure he should?

Oliver doesn't know who the man giving him directions to the café where Thea works in is, but he reads the stranger's body language like it's screaming at him. Whoever he is, he's afraid.

He visibly grimaces at his sister's fake name.

What are you doing Thea?

Though, if Oliver were being honest with himself, he could come up with a hundred and one reasons why she'd lie about that.

When he sees the back of her head for the first time in six months, he almost doesn't recognize her. But then she turns, and it's her face beneath the sharp, angular cut of her short hair, and though she looks different, she's still his sister and Oliver realizes he didn't fully understand how much he'd missed her until that moment.

"Thea."

The familiar voice startles her, but when she turns and sees her brother standing there, looking out of place in the bright sun and utterly uncomfortable, but happy to see her, Thea can't help but smile.

She doesn't really think about it and walks straight into his arms.

"Good to see you." he says, arms holding her tight enough to let her know that he'd missed her.

Thea takes a deep breath.

"You, too." She leans back to look at him. "How did you…"

His shrug may be noncommittal but his eyes are too sharp to shell it.

"Well, it's not exactly the Amalfi coast."

He says it offhandedly, but her face falls immediately. She doesn't like lying to him, no matter what Ollie's own policies are on that front. She doesn't like lying, period - but Malcolm made it very clear that nobody was supposed to know about them. About him .

Ollie seems to sense her reaction, so he derails the conversation.

"Can we talk?"

Thea takes a breath, nods.

"Let me talk to Ernesto first," she says as she points him to a table.

Oliver sits down and watches his sister have a fast-paced conversation in fluent spanish with the owner of the café, who shakes his head and shoos her away with a good-natured smile.

"Didn't you flunk Spanish?" Oliver asks, genuinely intrigued, as his sister sits down next to him.

Thea tilts her head at him, familiar impish smile on her face, even though now it looks more like an expression than a true emotion shining through.

It's more deliberate.

"More like skipped it altogether." Thea tells him offhandedly. It earns her a half-hearted smile.

It's so good to see her again.

"Well, you look good." and this time Oliver's smile is real "I like your hair cut."

The harsh angular cut makes her look older, but it seems to suits the newfound sternness in her eyes.

Guilt twinges somewhere beneath his left rib.

"Thank you. Yeah, wanted it short, you know." She shrugs. "It gets hot down here."

They both fall silent after that and Thea feels like rolling her eyes because, of course this conversation got off to such a stilted start. They're tiptoeing around each other while knowing that neither she nor her brother were ever the kind of people to fall comfortably into small talk; especially not when there's a whole herd of elephants between them.

His honest-eyed lies.

The half-truths she sold him, without a single ounce of regret.

Thea thinks back to Malcolm's hasty departure and wonders whether or not he knew that her brother was about to visit, and if that knowledge affected his decision to leave. He didn't tell her though…

Maybe he didn't know. Maybe he chose not to tell even if he did.

Either way, Thea finds herself not caring.

She waits another beat and it becomes obvious that Oliver is not going to push her for an explanation. It's almost as if he's waiting for one and for a dark moment, anger in her growls and she really considers snapping at him. Asking him if he really thinks he deserves one, with all the lies he's told her.

That moment passes quickly though. She decided a while ago that she wouldn't hold on to past hurts anymore.

"I'm sorry I lied to you about this, Ollie." She finally admits, having had enough with the tension. "I just needed some space."

"I understand that." he says, talking to his hands instead of her. But then he looks up. "Are six months of it enough?"

Her eyes narrow. She leans back on her chair. "This isn't just a visit."

It's not a question. But nobody could ever take if for compliance either. Oliver pulls out his ticket home.

"Got one for you, too."

Her face falls and Oliver takes a deep breath, preparing himself.

"After mom, I understood why you left Starling. Honestly, I would understand even now if you told me you never want to come back, but…"

"Oh, you would?" Thea interrupts, incredulity sharp in her tone, in her eyes.

Oliver feels sadness bloom in his breast like a wound. He gulps it down.

"Yes. Yeah, I would. I'm not here because it don't respect your choices, i promise. I'm here because…" he takes a deep breath and lets it out with deliberate carefulness. "I learned something in the past few days that… that might be difficult for you to hear, but that you should know, because it's going to put the both of us in danger if you don't."

The more he talks, the deeper Thea's frown gets but Oliver decided even before he really left Central City that he would tell her as much of the truth as possible without risking losing her forever.

And telling her Malcolm Merlyn was alive is important, not just for the sake of honesty, but for her safety too.

"I think that it's what mom was trying to tell us the night she died, right before the…" His words trail off and Thea looks down, away from the fresh pain in his eyes and to hide her own too.

Neither has gotten close to being done with what happened that night. Neither has even scratched the surface of that hurt, or talked about it. To anyone. And talking to each other seems impossible since they can't seem to even look the other in the face when their mother is mentioned.

Oliver recovers first.

"The night of the siege, you were at the train station," he starts. It's not a questions, but Thea offers up information anyway.

"Yeah. I… It wasn't fun." It had been terrifying and she thought she was going to die, but she holds that back. "I got attacked by one of those crazy masked things and he tried to strangle me. But he got shot by a cop, I think."

Oliver's eyes lose that gentleness the moment he focuses the entire measure of his concentration on her. It makes Thea uncomfortable.

"Did you see him?" His eyes have the kind of intensity that makes her want to flinch, but under this kind of pressure, her training takes over almost seamlessly.

She doesn't move a single eyelash.

"No. Why are you asking?"

Her ' no ' is smooth, perfect. And it's a lie. A practiced one.

Oliver can't tell the difference. And if in the back of his head, his senses prick a little in awareness, he ignores it. This is Thea.

He sighs, shoulders slumping. "It wasn't a cop, Thea. It was Malcolm Merlyn."

She looks back at him with wide, startled eyes.

"He's dead," Thea states, repeating it as if it was something beyond obvious. But Oliver's face doesn't shift a millimeter. "How would you even know if he wasn't?"

"One of Sara's friends saw him."

"But…"

"I know that it sounds impossible, but believe me, it's true."

Thea looks away to her tightly clenched hands.

Oliver mistakes her sudden anxiety for fear and takes both her hands in his.

"It's ok. I was afraid he'd try to contact you too, but if he hasn't done it by now, then he probably won't. I'm just… I'm glad you're ok."

She looks up and stares at him for a long moment, almost blankly. Then she blinks, and she's there again.

"Thank you. For telling me that," Thea says, trying to make her speech little less halted. "But I really don't see how I'd be any safer in Starling. It's like you said; if he was going to contact me, he probably would have done it by now."

Oliver leans forward immediately, eyes alert and flirting on the edge of wild. It's a look that worries her, because he is clearly very worried. ( at the back of her head, Thea starts to wonder, again, about the wisdom of her decisions, if this was how Oliver reacted to Malcolm so much as breathing in the same world as her )

"We can't know that. And there are people after him, that…"

Thea feels her shoulders tense. "What? What people?"

"People who wouldn't really mind using you to get to him."

Thea's voice lowers to a whisper. "Nobody knows…"

"If I found out, so could they."

She shakes her head, stubborn frown on her face. "What is 'they'?"

Oliver signs. "He tries to level a whole part of the city, Thea. More than three hundred people died. He's not really lacking enemies."

She wants to tell him that whoever these people are, they'll never catch Malcolm. He's too good to get caught by just people. But she can't say that. She's not supposed to know that.

"And I'm really not comfortable with leaving you alone here until he's dealt with." Oliver continues.

Thea feels her breath leave her lungs. Malcolm is not exactly the best person she's ever hung out with, nor the best father figure, but… he's still… he…

"Dealt with?"

"Apprehended," Oliver corrects immediately, his eyelashes fluttering.

"How would I be any safer in Starling?"

He fumbles for a minute. "I'll hire security. Keep you safe."

The mere idea irritates her beyond belief. It's not about keeping her safe, she thinks angrily. It's about keeping things under control, as usual.

Still, he's given her an opportunity too perfect for her not to take advantage.

Even at her most honest, Thea doesn't really know if she means what she's about to say, or if it's just a test.

Maybe it's both.

"I could do that even staying here. And you could stay here with me," Thea says, leaning forward and taking his hand before the stunned surprise in his voice turns to objection. "I know we had a rough time before, but I missed you, Ollie. Stay here with me. We can try to be people again, without everything bad that happened around us haunting us every step of the way."

Thea tries hard to keep the bitterness out of her voice but she doesn't succeed completely. She knows though, from the look on her brother's face that the answer to that will be no.

A splinter of resentment digs around in the wound at that.

Why won't he just leave that godforsaken city?

"I missed you too Thea." Oliver tells her, in that soft, careful tone he uses when he's making promises ( the kind of tone she dreads, because she knows now, promises are doors to disappointments ). "And I love you. So much. I would go with you to the ends of the earth… but I can't stay here with you."

And the fact that he seemed as pained by that as she feels, stops Thea from snapping at him too harshly.

"Why not? What have we got to go back to in Starling anyway? There is nothing there for us Ollie! Only death, and loss and people who hate us."

She loses fire as she speaks because Oliver nods along with her words and she just doesn't understand anything anymore. But she does know her brother, and however hard he is to read, she knows when he's hurting, because he just can't seem to hide it that well around her.

So, more softly this time, she asks him again. "What's wrong, Ollie? Really this time."

He looks up and it seems to her like he can't decide if he wants to play confused, or just tell her everything.

But there is so much grief there, naked in his eyes.

"What happened?" Thea scoots a little closer, lickes her lips to stave the nerves. She's forgotten completely that things are a half-standing ruin between them and that they haven't talked about anything real in months and that she shouldn't even want this or set herself up for disappointment like this.

She only knows that he's her brother and he's hurting.

Oliver gulps, tries to shake off the feeling enough to talk about it.

"A friend of mine… She got hurt a couple of days ago." He tells that to his fingers, restless on the table, not his sister. He can hardly bear to think about it even now. "What happened was my fault, and I can't… I can't just leave her alone in it now."

Thea feels her heart hurt for him. He seems to her so far away; looking about as lost as she used to feel.

"I'm sorry to hear that," she says gently after some moments of contemplation. "It's Felicity right? The blonde. I'm not confusing anything?"

Oliver blinks up at her, surprised that she added things up so quickly. "Yeah, it's her."

"Is she going to be ok?"

Oliver just shakes his head, a small, sad smile on his lips. "I don't know." he wipes a hand down his face. "I don't know yet."

Thea leans back with a long sigh, faces her own truths. She loves him and misses him and if there was any way to take pain from him she would, but if time has taught her anything is that she can't. She can't escape pain by wanting to change the people causing it. The only way to do that is to protect herself.

Which is why she has a very simple truth she needs to impress on her brother: She doesn't want to go back. Every corner of that city hid a nightmare and every shadow would just remind her of how weak she used to be. No, she doesn't want to revisit it again. Not ever. It would be like returning to the scene of the crime and Thea has worked too hard to overcome pain to just throw herself into that pit again.

"Ollie… I'm sorry about your friend. And I understand that you're worried about Malcolm. It's… it's freaky, for sure. But going back to Starling would just send me back exactly where I was last year, and I've been working so hard to let that go and try to be better."

Oliver opens his mouth but Thea interrupts him.

"No, listen. I'll compromise with you. Hire the best security you can, and I'll let them set up here. I won't be pissy about it, i promise. But i'm not going back to Starling." and her tone is so hard, it doesn't allow for discussion.

Not that that would stop him.

"Thea…"

"No. I want to be there for you, Ollie, I do. You're hurting and when you do it hurts me too, but Starling is the place where I lost everything and everyone, and the last time I was there I ended up feeling barely human. And I don't want to go back. If you cared about me at all you wouldn't even ask me."

Oliver looks at her like she just broke his heart and maybe she did.

The notion seems to stand far ahead of her, and she looks at it from a distance.

"You haven't lost me Thea."

"No?" She tries, she really does, to keep the tears away from her voice, but it's proving harder than she thought. When she practiced detachment and emotional control with malcolm, she didn't have her brother's face staring back at her with heartbreak written all over it so openly. She couldn't have prepared for what it would do to her.

But feelings don't really budge her decision though. O any of the truths she knows.

"Because it seems to me like we're better siblings for each other when we're apart."Thea adds, even as her voice shakes. "It's easier… to be your sister, to love you, when you're not lying to my face."

She says the words and feels their cruelty as they scorch their way across her brother's feelings. It's so strange how transparent he suddenly is, she practically sees it happen. But if this is the twist of the knife, then she's twisting it right beneath her own ribs too, because she can't say the words without tears falling.

Thea wipes them away angrily as she stands up.

"I have to go, my break is over."

She makes to leave, but her feet are stuck. She can't turn her back and leave her brother sitting there, still and speechless after she just made him bleed.

"Let's have dinner together. As a truce." she says as she turns back to him, giving him a pained smile that turns to a grimace when he looks up at her. "Just you, me and food. I know how to cook now."

Oliver nods slowly. "Okay."

His voice is thick with emotions, but that little acceptance is all she needs to finally feel released from him. She walks away so fast she almost runs at the back of the bar, and when she is in the small storage room, she can finally take a breath and let some more tears fall. She allows it. Counts to ten and lets herself absorb all this.

And then she lets it go.

When Felicity is sure that she can stand on her own feet for more than five minutes and that doing so won't sent the room spinning like a carousel, she asks Caitlin for new scrubs and to show her where the nearest shower is.

As it happens, it's pretty close. One door away from her room, actually.

Felicity walks slowly there, careful and every step deliberate. She's had a horrible stomach ache for the last hour and even though she had some soup, she's still hungry, but from the way her last meal is dancing around in her tummy, she doesn't think that would be a very good idea.

Her cursory glance along the simple mirror in the white-tiled bathroom stops her short. A soft plaintive groan makes it past her lips. She barely recognizes herself.

There's a sickly, grayish tint to her skin, her lips bloodless and cracked and the skin around her eyes irritated as if she got a load of pepper-spray on her face. Her hair dull and lifeless and by all accounts she's slept for days, if one could call come sleeping, but her eyes were sunken and busied with exhaustion that she feels all the way down to her bones.

Everything hurts, she feels like shit and she looks worse.

Outstanding.

She takes the shower sitting down on the tile, her legs crossed and trying to be done as soon as she can while getting as clean as she can. It's not that she can barely be there without her vision going a bit dark at the edges, but it's… it's so strange really. The noise of the water hitting the tiles is so loud ! It's like a small thunderstorm picking up. And that would be nothing in itself. What truly makes it uncomfortable is that she has to regulate the showerhead so that the spray of water is at its gentlest pressure, because she feels like her skin has been scraped raw all over. She almost scalded her hand when she tried the temperature.

Getting dressed in the fluffy pajamas that Caitlin got for her is… trickier.

She has to sit down on the covered toilet and catch her breath for about five minutes. And she doesnt dry off as well as she usually does. Just puts on the clothes, wraps her hair in a towel and gets out. Suddenly the bed sounds real inviting, even though she's been laying there all day.

Just as she gets out of the bathroom though the voices on the other side become much clearer. And much louder.

Roy raises his voice in the distance and Felicity winces. Roy quietens immediately, looking chastised the the mere glance Digg sends his way.

"Sorry."

"It's ok." Felicity dismisses as she gets into bed. "Nice pair of lungs you got there."

"Huh?"

"Never mind. What were you guys arguing about."

Digg gets up to his full height. "Wells has the results of the tests. He'd like to talk to you about it."

"Yeah sure."

"You should rest a bit first." Digg ventures. For once Felicity doesn't feel like disagreeing with him.

"What's Roy upset about?"

Digg sighs. "Roy doesn't like the doc."

That gets Felicity's attention. "Caitlin."

Roy shakes his head. "Wells. I just don't like the way he talks about you, Blondie. He went on and on about what happened to you for an hour and never even said your name once. He freaks me out."

Felicity contemplates that. More than freaked out, Roy looked angry and suspicious, but that was his natural response to any kind of vulnerability.

"I'm not the man's biggest fan either, and we should be careful around him, but he's the best chance we've got at figuring out what's up with Felicity, so we can't just pick up and leave, Roy."

Felicity signs. "We can keep watch over what he's doing though." She says around a yawn.

Both her teammates turn to look at her.

"I hacked STAR Labs computer system a while ago. I can access it remotely. Don't worry Roy. We've got this."

Roy dares a small smile. "Eyes in the back of your head huh."

Felicity sinks deeper into the pillow with a hum. "Oliver's paranoia is contagious."

Digg snorts. He comes closer and settles the blanket across her shoulders so that they're covered.

"Besides, I've got you guys watching out for me."

"Always. How's your stomach?"

Felicity pouts. "Still angry at me."

"Get some sleep. Maybe when you wake up we'll see what we can do about something you and your digestive system can agree on this time."

She hums, half gone to dreams already.

And if in her dazed state she turns her head to tollow Digg's hand and the inviting rush of life beneath his skin, well, she's too far gone to notice it.

When Oliver gets back to his hotel room, he feels exhausted, both physically and mentally.

He tries to pass the time in a hundred different things and all of them lead him back ot holding his phone and staring at Felicity's smiling face on the screen. Every time, he thinks better of it.

Every single time but once. And really, that's all it takes.

He presses the call button before he can think better of it. It rings three times before she picks it up.

"Oliver?" her voice is smoother than it was when he left, but right then it sounds thick with sleep. Oliver swallows hard and for a moment he feels completely at loss for words.

"I'm sorry i woke you." he says, closing his eyes. He feels so unnaturally stupid at the moment. If it had been anyone else he would have found an excuse and ended the call right there, but this is Felicity. She'd probably blast his phone to the moon if he did that, all the way from Central City.

She rustles a little, and oliver assumes she's sitting up.

"It's ok. I had to wake up anyway. I've been asleep forever."

"Feeling any better?"

"I think so." but it sounds almost like a question. Before he can ask anything else though, Felicity derails the conversation completely. "How is it going with Thea?"

His silence is more eloquent than anything he could have said. Oliver hears her sigh.

"Let me guess. The levels of suckage are exceeding expectations?"

He huffs a silent laugh, or what passes for a laugh this days. And then tells her the general gist of his conversation with his sister.

He doesn't really share the bits that are still wreaking havoc under his ribs though. Those… yeah those are his to keep.

Felicity is silent for long moments after.

"She does have a point, Oliver." Felicity sighs into his ear and he closes his eyes, leans his head back to the wall. "I mean, if I had gone through what Thea went through in Starling, I'd probably never want to go back either. And it's not like you can tell her that Merlyn is a super-ninja and… Wait, can you?"

"I'm considering it."

"And how would you happen to know?"

Oliver knows what she means. What's your excuse for knowing things you couldn't possibly know about, unless you were someone you vehemently claim you're not .

Oliver sighs. "I'm working on that."

A long stretch of silence filled with only their breaths on the line. Hers is a little heavier than his though, but Oliver bites his lip instead of asking her , again, if she is feeling ok.

"Do you ever think about it?"

Her voice startles him a bit.

"About what?"

"Leaving. Just… leaving Starling and starting a life somewhere else. Somewhere where you don't have to make plans involving how to avoid people shooting at you, cause vigilante life aside, those are always the best plans."

He smiles. "They never turn out right though."

She groans softly. He can imagine her wince, her scrunched up nose, and his smile widens just a bit.

"Yeah, we need to get better at those." Felicity admits. But she says nothing else after, and he knows she's leaving him space to answer, if he wants to.

He used to. He used to think about running all the time. It was part of his nature, Oliver thought sometimes. Maybe that would explain why it felt like such a compulsion. But he knows that's not really it.

It's about not wanting to be buried alive under the weight of his mistakes. He'd rather vanish instead. It's avoidance, and cowardice. Nothing extraordinary about it.

Failure for him comes with an aftertaste of bitter undoing. He remembers what it feels like to look at what he's done and see only someone not good enough. And if that wasn't enough, not even his fuck-ups are his to bear. They impressed themselves on the skin of the people he loved, and Oliver couldn't stand the thought of it. It makes him want to disappear. Erase himself from existence, go somewhere where nobody knows him. Some place where the damage he can do is limited and doesn't hurt anyone.

He remembers that.

Things are spiraling now too, but he can't leave anymore. There are strings, frail as a wish whispered in the dark, that tether him. To the ground, to resolution. To people. People he would do anything for. People who need this Oliver.

He can't afford to be a ghost anymore.

In the end he gives all the truth he's capable of.

"I do think about it," Oliver admits. "Sometimes." He wonders if Felicity feels it. That restlessness in him that tells her he's never quite comfortable anywhere. "But not as much as I used to."

Thea's words keep repeating themselves in his head. She is all he has. If he has to show her all his open wounds and the horror… he will. He doesn't want anything like that to ever touch her ever, but he doesn't want to lose her either.

"I think I need to tell Thea everything." he hears himself saying. "She said something to me that… Yeah, i don't think i can keep her at a distance anymore. I'm going to lose her if i do."

He feels the truth of those words even as he says them.

The line is silent and Oliver imagines Felicity blinking.

"You mean… ' everything' everything. As in…"

"The island, what happened the five years that I was away, everything I've been doing since then." If Thea wants to keep him at a distance, that's her choices. God, most of the time he would even approve. But at least she should know why. She should know.

"Oh."

"Yeah."

He knows, logically speaking, that that is the best thing to do. Even as far as strategic decisions go, it's the one that makes the most sense.

Except he is terrified.

Felicity's tone changes over the line, gentles in a way that he recognizes. She probably already knows what's going through his head.

"You don't sound like you're really looking forward to doing that."

"I'm not, no. Because the truth, the real truth - the one Thea will hear when I tell her everything - is that her brother has been lying to her to her face, with pathological sincerity for the past two years." He presses his fingers against his eyelids, to stall the heartache that is starting to spike behind his eyeballs. "I'm going to lose her."

Felicity lets out a long exhale. He wishes he could see her face, maybe he would be able to tell what she's about to say to him.

"Seems to me like she's already slipping through your fingers Oliver. What have you got to lose?"

He scoffs. "Well, she doesn't hate me yet."

"Oliver." Exasperation creeps in her tone. Asking her whether or not she is in fact rolling her eyes at him over the phone is right on the tip of his tongue when she starts talking again.

"You know, you really need to start having some faith in the fact that the people you care about, care about you in exactly the same way, Oliver. … Have a little faith in your sister."

Oliver gulps heavily, trying to swallow down the knot of nerves in his throat.

"Ok."

"Oliver."

His spine straightens imperceptibly. It's stupid but for a split second he was ready to jump to his feet.

"Yes."

She takes a ragged breath. "Let me know how it goes."

His lips twitch upwards. "I will. Bye, Felicity."

"Bye, Oliver."

The main diagnostics room of STAR Labs is where the team conducts their experiments with Barry. It's a huge room and filled with all kinds of tech to test all kinds of things, but currently, felicity is sitting on a metal chair, elbows on the glas stable with Roy and Digg at her sides while they listen to Wells explain virology and genetics to them.

"So, let's say you want to change the human body. You want to fix a mistake. You want to repair something, improve something. Well, if you're going to reprogram human genetic material, you need a delivery system and nothing works better than virus." As Wells talks, he adjusts his glasses on the perch of his nose, eyes behind them shining with excitement. Felicity could follow his every micro-expression and though she didn't find the doc's enthusiasm for the sciency stuff as creepy as Roy did, there was something in his manner that undoubtedly put her on her guard.

But maybe that was just because ever since she woke she'd been feeling so antsy that she could hardly stay in one place, even though she knew she didn't have the energy to move.

"It's like a suitcase." Wells explains. "You pack in genetic mutation, infect the body and the vector unloads into the target cells. But getting it where you want it, how you want it, is the nightmare. Unless you have a map. Now, no scientist in the history of viral-receptor mapping has ever manages to create one, but this virus apparently already had it. It's… It's impossible, but there you have it."

Felicity sighs and tries to bottle her frustration down.

"I sense a pattern here." She mutters. Digg hums, soft enough only for her to hear. Roy is stone still and just a silent.

God she's so hungry, and it's starting… it's starting to feel almost like a compulsion. Her eyes fit around and land on things that don't make sense and her instincts are a jumble, but she doesn't care because her stomach is about to gnaw at itself it feels so empty. And yet , she threw up the watered-down soup they gave her, again. To be perfectly honest, though it had tasted fine, she'd felt even worse after eating it she'd felt relieved that it had left her system, after.

A small whisper at the back of her head kept hissing nonsensical things at her, but Felicity had decided that she was going to ignore that. Wrap a bubble around her sanity and would only consider the thoughts that made sense. Same as she'd put on those thick dark glasses so that she could move around without her eyes feeling like they were burning out of her skull.

Only things that made sense. Thoughts of blood and how… how…

No, those didn't make sense. It was just shock.

"Now, as for the effects. What has happened is that the virus has made some very minor alterations made to two different chromosomes of yours Miss Smoak." A picture of a chromosome on the computer's screen, a side of it marked with green and the other with blue. Felicity leans forward. "The green side, the physical side, is nothing more than a 1.5 percent rise in mitochondrial protein uptake."

The doctor turns to look at her, eyes sharp as glass. "That sounds like a negligible number, but in the body as a whole 1.5 percent translates into immediate increase in cellular tempo, muscle efficiency, oxygenation…"

He seemed to think it a wonder and maybe it was but Felicity is more concerned about the effects this whole thing is going to have on her body.

"And the blue side?"

"Neural regeneration and elasticity. Sensory function. Pain suppression." Wells takes off his glasses and rubs the bridge of his nose, but he's smiling. "It's the most exciting development in genomic targeting in the history of the science."

Roy's heartbeat picked up. She could hear it. Digg stiffened.

"The virus is useless at this point. Iit has already started degenerating and no matter what we cannot seem to reproduce it. The only proof of it lives in you now. With careful study, we could figure out how it operates, and replicate it."

Felicity leaned back. Wells wanting to experiment with possibly-League originated stuff wasn't as ot a plan as the doc might think.

"I don't think that's a great idea. And that's definitely not why I'm here."

"Miss Smoak…"

"I understand the scientific implications behind this doc, but I don't really feel like playing guinea-pig for anyone right now." Felicity says as she reaches for the glass of cold water in front of her. She drinks all of it. "And this could be really dangerous. Especially since you don't really know what this virus is, where it comes from or it's side efects. So I'd appreciate if you could just tell me what's wrong with me and leave it at that."

Wells collects himself admirably.

"Absolutely nothing is wrong with you, Miss Smoak. On the contrary, in comparison to most people, you are at the height of your health and as time will prove, in the utmost peak of physical condition." Wells leans forward, as if he's trying to impress his point onto her. "Don't you understand Felicity? You are now the living proof the human condition is amendable. That it can be perfected and it doesn't take a strike of lightning, or a wave of dark matter. That is is possible, through science ."

Felicity contemplates his words, her face reflecting the distaste she feels.

"It's possible to make some people better than others… You know, everyone should be weary of that no matter what, but as a jewish person, mark me down as very uncomfortable with the whole premise of that idea." Felicity to mention all the ways this could be weaponised. But she doesn't say that.

Her scathing tone didn't seem to discourage Wells in the slightest though.

"Think about curing cancer, Felicity. All the diseases that have a genetic origin and that so far we have only fought against the symptoms, never being able to do anything against the cause itself."

"What I'm thinking right now is that all that will be for nothing really, if I end up starving to death." Felicity says bluntly. "I've been hungry since i woke up but I can't keep anything down. Why?"

Caitlin walks forward then.

"I… might have an answer for that." she says haltingly. Felicity eyes the folder in her hands, the way Caitlin is gripping it so tight. She can't read her expression, it seems equal parts hesitant and freaked out, with a good dose of apprehension on the side. And she looks pale.

Felicity's stomach drops to the floor. She can't even ask, but that's ok. Digg does it for her.

"What is it?" His tone utterly calm, but forceful enough to jumpstart the doc into answers.

Caitlin looks right at Felicity.

"I just got the results of your biopsy back. The reason you can't keep anything down is because you have Inflammation of the Digestive tract and its causing it absorption issues."

Felicity frowns, even as her heart starts beating faster.

"In theory, Heme would be a solution for an increase of HO-1 to lock onto, and create more CO, which then counteracts and even protects against the inflammation. But both heme and CO can be toxic to the human body."

Felicity let out a slow breath.

"Thanks for the info doc, but how does this help us exactly?" Roy snaps. Felicity throws him a sharp look and he just shrugs 'what' like he did nothing wrong.

"Well, there is a way to get both those things in the body without it poisoning you. And it seems…" Caitlin takes a breath, like she's bracing herself. "It seems like it's what your body wants because the tissues of sample i took reacted well. Really well, actually."

And it sounded like a good thing, but Felicity still couldn't figure out why Caitlin seemed so freaked out by that.

"Caitlin, i really don't follow." Felicity says, sounding exactly as exhausted as she feels.

Caitlin opens and closes her mouth for a moment.

"Okay, so i know how this is going to sound, but please keep in mind that all things considering, we've actually dealt with weirder things." she says finally as she looks around at everybody.

"Not really helping here, Cait." Felicity says through gritted teeth. God, her patience has gone and fucked off hasn't it?

"Theoretically speaking, blood would be the solution?"

Felicity narrows her eyes.

"Are you telling me or asking me?"

"The inflammation went down surprisingly fast when in contact with a small amount of O negative, and the tissues absorption properties were top notch."

Felicity drew blank in her mind and by the looks of it, John and Roy too.

"You can't keep food down because that's not what you need right now." Caitlin says eyes are so knowing that they piece that bubble of protection around Felicity's sanity, as easily as it it had been a soap bubble.

"Are you telling me that she…" Wells starts, but John interrupts him.

"Are you people insane ?"

"No not really. It's… it's what her body says it needs, mr Diggle. I didn't make this up."

But through all this, Roy's voice comes through clearest.

"Remember what Sara said?" Roy whispered, instantly catching Digg's attention and Felicity's too. He looks young, and scared. "She said there would be a blood price."

And that's when Felicity gets up and leaves, as quickly as she can.

Felicity goes back to her room, closes the door, hacks the mechanism and locks it from the inside. She knows that it can be overridden but it will take them at least another six hours to do that and in the meantime, Felicity needs to think.

She needs to find some sense in all this. She needs to reason her way out of it. She's done it before, it's not that impossible. She's withstood so much, she can do this.

Because it can't be real. This can't be her reality. It's impossible.

Its a fuckign horror show!

This can't be real.

But her senses tell her different.

It's right there at the pit of her stomach, in the burn of her throat. At her fingertips and in the way that even in the isolated room, she can still hear Digg coming down the hall, his furious heartbeat.

Oh god… oh god…

Now that she allows herself to consider it, Felicity can.. She can feel it: the hunger scraping at her insides. How it's so much deeper than anything she's felt before.

All this time she'd thought she was just hungry but she should have known. She should have faced it same as she's always faced what scared her: head on. But how could he? She'd had no way to translate these sensations into anything other than what she already knew of her body. New sensations came through her in a code for which she didn't have the key. The only baseline for which she could translate that clawing hunger she felt was for food so she'd assumed… she'd assumed…

But now that she knows, she can't deny it anymore. It chews at her, vicious and needy, making her ache. It's starting to become the closest thing to real, true need she's ever felt. A midnight craving cracked up to the eleventh.

It makes her gut clench in the way that reminds of her how cramps used to feel, but more than pain, it's a push for action.

Move !

Felicity shivers, afraid of her own thoughts. She may be weak but it's not a weakness that suffers itself. It's pushing her to action.

She doesn't even want to think about what kind of action.

Felicity gets up and unlocks the glass door. Digg is standing on the other side as if waiting for her. And Felicity could laugh, she really could because she is almost a foot shorter than him in fuzzy pink-striped pajamas and bunny slippers, cause Barry thought he was funny, and there Digg - 200 pounds wall-of-muscle and Special-Forces trained John Diggle - and he's looking like he's bracing against her.

"I need a favour."

His jaw clenches. "I had a feeling you would."

You know that this is nonsensical right. There's no way this could be true." John says. Felicity doesn't contradict him, but she doesn't reassure him either.

She knows better.

John tries to step closer but she takes a hasty step back and raises her hands.

"Don't." she warns.

John's eyes are wide and almost frantic. He shakes his head minutely. "This is impossible."

Felicity smiles, if that curve of her lips and her empty eyes could be called a smile. Her hands are shaking.

"After Slade, Barry and all the people he deals with, you really believe in the impossible."

John shakes his head harder. "This isn't about metahumans! This… this is…"

It would be funny, any other time, how he can't even say it.

"Whatever it is, I don't want…" Felicity gulps with difficulty. "I don't want to hurt anyone. I'm not willing to take that chance. I'm trusting you to help me, John." she says softly.

"That's not fair." John protests, but she can see that he's already made up his mind. He's going to do whatever she needs to.

"I'm not into playing fair right now Digg."

"I won't matter that i disagree with this, will it?"

"No, not this time."

They walk down the hall, to the long reactor that serves as a prison for the metahumans that Team Flash apprehend every once in awhile.

"And what about when Oliver comes back and kills me for this."

"Oliver has nothing to do with this. Besides…" She looks up at him with a small smirk. "You can handle yourself."

When Thea sees him standing there, waiting for her on her front porch, she sighs. She should have known he wouldn't just let this go. They're about to find out what happens when an unstoppable force meets an unmovable object, she thinks, since Oliver doesn't give up, and she's not about to give in.

She still walks toward him though. Whatever he has to say now, she is going to listen to him. Thea knows that even before he asks. In many ways, it's what grates. She's keeping distance and she's not changing her mind, but he's still her brother. The only brother she has left now and her only family… kind of.

"Is it dinner time already for you?" She tries with an awkward smile.

"I need to talk to you."

Her face sobers. "I thought we agreed this would be a truce."

"It's not dinner yet," Oliver offers, in that chirpy way that is so painfully fake it makes her flinch. He can't seem to stand it any more than she because he drops it immediately. "And I really do need to talk to you."

"Again?" A bit of irritation comes through. She doesn't like it when people insist despite already having her answer. It makes her feel like they don't respect her enough to stand by her decision; like they think she doesn't know well enough to make one for herself. "I really think we're already said everything Ollie. Let's not hurt each other anymore, please."

Oliver shakes his head immediately.

"I'm not trying to. But I know that I have hurt you before, and the least I could do is explain. I just want you to understand, Thea."

They both stand there looking at each other; Oliver asking for a chance and Thea contemplating how much it would hurt to give him one.

In the end, there really is no choice to make.

"Come on in," she says tiredly as she passes by him, unlocking the front door and holding it open for her brother to come through.

Oliver braces himself. His insides are nowhere to be found and his hands are sweating, but he's already made up his mind. They're in her kitchen – she's offered him a glass of wine he hasn't touched, waiting for her to be done with putting away the groceries.

When she does turn to him with her own glass of red and sets it on the counter, taking her seat expectantly, Oliver feels his heart pound so loud in the silence of the house that he is half sure she'll hear it.

"You were right, before. About everything. I have lied, I have kept secrets."

Thea stiffens. Experience has taught her one certainty when it comes to her family: nothing good ever follows Queens making speeches about being honest. Usually only more lies are right behind those promises and Thea knows herself enough to know where her soft underbelly is: it's right there in front of her, staring at her with her mother's eyes. She could so easily fall back to old habits of wanting to believe him.

Knowing that weakness, and fearing it, is the reason why she takes a breath and crushes her feelings down mercilessly.

Pain is inevitable; suffering is optional .

"The truth is that if I tell you all the things that you don't know about me… I spent five years in the worst kind of hell, and there were things that happened…" Oliver gulps, looks away. He can't even look at her in the face, telling her those things. "There were things that I did that if you knew, you would see me differently."

His voice breaks just a little bit, and Thea feels her heart surge against all discipline.

She doesn't know where he gets these notions about her, and she's not about to let them stand.

"No, I'll always see you as my big brother. Because that is who you are, Ollie. No matter what happened to you on that island, or who you became…" She shakes her head, because how is it possible that he always has something to say about everyone, but never takes his own advice? "It's like you said, remember? I will accept any part of you, even if I can't recognize it at all… because the other part of you will always be my brother.[1]"

Oliver feels caught, wide eyed and heart getting too big for his ribcage, looking at her like a deer in headlights. He'd said those exact words almost a year ago, during their mother's trial. He'd said them thinking about their mom, sure, but the part of him that had hoped Thea would be able to do the same with him one day had not been as small as he'd tried to tell himself.

"But this is not about the things that happened to you that you never told me, Ollie. That's not what I meant. Those are your secrets to keep. I want to be there for you, sure, but I can deal with the fact that you don't want me to." And she doesn't even pause at his wince. "No, this is about the secrets you kept about my own life ."

It hurts to come back to this again. And it astounds Thea, how fresh the hurt is. She thought she was over it but she's obviously not. It feels as lacerating as it did months ago and she's on the verge of tears within seconds.

The part of her that will always chase after him like he's her biggest hero still has trouble accepting this happened. ' How could you ' still echoes in her head, a reminder that the hurt goes so deep because she'd never for a moment believed him capable of inflicting it. She had expected it from their mother. But not Ollie.

But he very well can. And he did . For months, without ever flinching.

"I mean, you lied to me about who my father was."

"Malcolm may be your blood," Oliver says immediately, "But Robert was your father."

Thea traps the groan of frustration behind her teeth. It makes her words come out half a growl. "That's not the point ! And it makes me want to scream that you still don't get that!"

Thea hisses a breath and tries to get a hold of her temper because she was two seconds away from raising her voice at him.

" What you were hiding wasn't what I was so upset about. It was the fact that you and mom both chose to lie to me about it!" She spits the words out like venom. They are.

They have been poisoning her into resentment for months.

"I'm sorry I lied to you, but I was only trying to protect you," Oliver says gently, looking at her like he's willing her to understand.

She scoffs eyes cold and unforgiving. "Come on, Ollie, I thought we said we were going to be honest."

Oliver cringes. "I am."

Thea shakes her head, disbelief and hurt mixing together, staining her deeply. He actually believes that!

It makes her temper rise like nothing else, breaking through training and discipline, shattering her calm.

She stands so fast the stool almost falls down.

"Protect me from what? From who ? Do you even know me at all ? The only thing I never wanted to be protect from was the truth so let's just stop saying any of that was for me because it wasn't ." Her words cut, hot anger sharpening them to a razor's edge. "It was about you and mom and the two of you circling each other with your issues and guilt and whatever the fuck! It was never about me – I was just… I was just the furniture you kept moving around."

Her voice breaks at the end and Thea turns her back to him, leaning against the counter of the kitchen and trying not to break down again.

Twice in a single day. That isn't very promising.

But then again, she hadn't talked about this, any of this, to a single soul ever since she came here. The grief that had calcified under the thin layer of numbness was exploding out of her. She'd thought she'd hidden it away, but that had been such a lie.

She had been able to avoid this as long as it was only her own face that reminded her of what had happened. But Oliver picking at both their wounds – that was like planting dynamite on the careful dam she'd been building and setting a countdown.

"You are so alike, you and mom," Thea starts slowly, her voice hushed and low. "Whenever you got the chance, you choose to hide things. I bet neither of you even thought twice about it. It's just how you both operate . I mean, I knew exactly how ruthless mom could be, but I honestly thought you saw me differently." She feels so exhausted and alone all of a sudden. Utterly abandoned. "Guess I was wrong."

The anger has burned away. Only heavy sadness and solitude fills her now. And he wants her to go back and play family with him.

No.

They're better off where they can't hurt each other.

She barely hears him step around the counter but then she turns and he's there, one step away from her, his hands on her shoulders, making her look at him in the face. Open sorrow and regret are so immediate in his eyes that it hurts just to look at him.

"I do understand Thea. I do," Oliver says heavily, putting the whole weight of his sincerity behind every single word. "Because I know you. I know who you are, Thea. I know you value honesty more than anything else. That you hate people talking over your head and not taking you seriously when you practically raised yourself. I know that."

Thea feels her tears slide down her face but she doesn't move, doesn't look away.

Maybe he does know that, but he didn't care enough.

"I know that you've been trying for years to get people to just see you, because one day we were all there for you and the next we were gone and we left you alone. And I know that you thought I was the only person you could trust to do that – I let you believe it too, which is worse. I lied to you, to your face. I betrayed you and I left you alone again. I do understand Thea. And I'm so sorry. So sorry."

She's openly sobbing now because hearing all that she feels coming from his mouth so clearly is like slamming back to her own body and finding it warm, when just a second ago she had fathomed herself all alone in the world.

Oliver has to blink quickly because honestly, he's not far behind her.

"I know that I hurt you, and I understand why you'd think it would be easier being apart, but Thea…" His voice breaks and Oliver clears his throat to keep his voice steady. Takes a deep breath, trying to get some air in his lungs after just stabbing his chest open for her and showing her the insides.

"What?" Thea pushes, red faced, and confused. She's as tender as a fresh bruise right now and Oliver knows he needs to say this but he has no idea how.

"I think I have to tell you something, but it's horrible and I don't know how."

Thea closes her eyes with a sigh, leaning against the counter and crossing her arms over her chest.

"Just say it."

"It's about dad. I lied to you about him, too. He wasn't the man we thought he was. And I've kept this from you because… because most days i wish i could forget it too." Because it was horrifying. And he never wanted something so violent and scarring to ever so much as brush Thea. But now he has to confess it.

"Dad made it off The Gambit with me."

Thea barely even reacts anymore.

"You told me he drowned."

"I did. I lied. We made it to a life boat together. There wasn't enough food and water for both of us, so he killed himself."

He watches with trepidation as her eyes widen with shock as the truth reverberates through her.

"And need you to know that because the thing is… mom and dad, they sacrificed themselves so that we could live. And all the things I need to tell you, they're probably going to make everything between us harder, but Thea… You're my family. And even if you don't need me, I need you. Because if we're not together, there's a part of me that is not even really alive. And I'll be better, I promise. I swear it. Just… Please just consider what I'm saying."

Thea drops on one of the high stoos of the kitchen isle and lets her head fall in her hands. She stays that way, still and silent, for what feels like forever.

Finally she turns to him, and gives him a small nod. She's still reeling but even that small gesture feels like a truce between them.

"Would a hug be ok?" Oliver asks with hesitation, and he finds himself with an armful of his sister that slams into him before he's even done asking. She sobs freely in his chest and Oliver holds on tight enough to feel her there, exhausted beyond breaking point.

He has no idea how much time passes before the untangle from each other.

Oliver clears his throat, but despite that, his voice is still raspy.

"So… do you need space?"

Thea shakes her head. "No. Are you any good with a knife?"

Oliver lets his eyelids fall closed. He does not, and never will, appreciate irony.

"I'm decent."

"Ok good. Start with the vegetables. We're having chicken and chili for dinner."

She comes and sits by is side quietly at the airport, a small suitcase in her hand. Oliver gets up and hugs her to himself for long moments.

When she backs away to look at him though, her eyes are stern.

"One chance. This one chance. You lie to me again and I swear Ollie, we are done. Whatever corner of the world you pick, I'll be at the opposite one."

Oliver takes a careful breath. "Does that count for all the times I've lied before?"

She considers him carefully and that steadiness about her that had been so new before now hits him full force.

"No. No retroactive effects to this new rule." she says, and then nods. "Let's take it as a fresh start okay?"

Oliver nods. He's boxed himself in nice and tight, and in a way, he's glad. He loves Thea enough that he is glad he has cornered himself into telling her the truth. And he will.

"There are a couple of things I'll need to show you once we get back to Starling." He says instead.

Thea nods. And then frowns.

"Do we still have the mannor?"

"Yeah." Oliver turns to her, contemplating it. "How would you feel about selling it, Thea?"

She thinks about it for a moment.

"I feel pretty good about it actually." And then she smiles. "We could get a place together if you want. You're not with anyone are you?"

Oliver doesn't know how to answer the second question so he sticks to the first.

"Being roomies sounds nice. Haven't had one of those since college."

Thea's eyes sparkle. "Which college."

"The second one." Oliver says readily, almost as if he'd anticipated her. Thea's smile only grows.

Oliver throws one arm across her shoulders, tucks her close and kisses the top of her head.

"I love you Thea." the words fall heavily from his lips. This could very well be temporary. He could lose her again, the moment he lets her in the Foundry. The moment she's able to make the connection between her brother and the body count over the Hood's shoulders.

"Love you too big bro. Don't think i didn't notice how you dodged that question before." she smirks up at him. "I'm gonna let that one slide for now."

He shoves her away - gently. Her laugh rings in his ears.


	13. Chapter 13

_"Hold onto your voice. Hold onto your breath. Don't make a noise,_  
 _don't leave the room until I come back from the dead for you. I will_  
 _come back from the dead for you."_

 _–Richard Siken, Snow and Dirty Rain_

"Hey."

John looks up to see Cisco Ramon hovering in his periphery, holding out a cup of what he assumes from the smell is coffee. John takes it with a small thank you.

"You ok?" Cisco asks softly. John just holds the cup for longs moments, fingers curled around the porcelain tightly.

It takes him a while to answer.

"My best friend has been poisoned and she might very well be turned into something straight out of a horror movie. My other best friend is half a world away, trying to find his runaway sister before her mass murdering father does. A man we thought was dead, but who apparently got over it." John takes a deep, steadying breath, trying to order his thoughts into some semblance of calm, despite the fact that they were more slippery than they had been in a long time.

The thought of Merlyn gave him incredible focus though. The kind of focus that came with having a clear target.

"The same man that got 503 people killed and who might also have a hand in setting all of this mess up in the first place. We have no idea what is play is, so we have to assume we'll have the even bigger trouble on our tail sooner or later."

It wouldn't worry him as much, but 'bigger trouble in this instance is the League of Assassins. Just the look on Sara's face when she talked about it would be enough to make John tense. Sara Lance was the kind of woman who didn't flinch for anything other than a bullet with her name on it. What could scare her like that had to be taken seriously.

The silence that falls is heavy, but John almost smiles at Cisco's next words, hesitant but genuine in the kid's desire to lift his mood even just a little.

"So that would be a 'no' then?"

John exhales, long and slow.

"No, Cisco… I don't think 'okay' is the word I'm gonna use anytime in the near future." he shakes his head. "Look, you don't know me that well. But I'm the type of guy who's only thought about one thing: how do I keep the people I love safe. And right now, seems to me I'm doing a pretty shit job at it."

Cisco's eyes are wide and honest when he rebuts that. "Not from where I'm standing. You're taking care of Felicity just fine, cause if you haven't noticed, you and Roy are the only ones she hangs around comfortably with. Whatever happens, I'm sure you're gonna do fine, cause you're Team Arrow man! You guys always win."

John gives the kid a tired, humorless smile. In many ways, Cisco reminds him of Felicity so there is a measure of calm that the kid gives him, despite all odds and chances.

"Yeah, but that was before. In a world where dead people stayed dead, people weren't able to run at the speed of sound and myths didn't turn out to be real."

His life was a freaking movie all of a sudden and Digg was taking to the shift about as well a straight thinking man like him ever could: that is, he wasn't taking to it at all. He could hardly wrap his brain around it.

"Or walk on water?"

Digg throws Cisco an alarmed look. "Barry can walk on water?"

Cisco just smiles, and Digg rolls his eyes. This kid…

But then the kid straightens and leans forward, his face set in the kind of conviction that itched to reach out and pull you in.

"Mister Diggle, this world was crazy way before all the meta-humans and super powers started popping up. And if what you already know of this thing is true, even what Felicity's going through is result of a virus that has existed for thousands of years."

John kept looking at him, completely nonplused.

"What's your point Cisco?"

"Well, maybe meta-humans and superpowers were given to us to deal with the crazy."

"You mean by God?" the edge of disbelief in his voice was obvious. John had never gone that far to search for explanation because he'd always believed that it lay closer; namely in people.

"No. By nature. And a dark matter wave released from a failed particle accelerated reaction," Cisco deadpans. "Either way, I think people like Barry - and Oliver and Felicity too - are supposed to be a kind of hope for people like us."

"Oliver doesn't have superpowers Cisco." John specifies. "He has a particular set of skills; and how he came by those skills should be nobody's envy."

"Right. But still, you see my point, right? Plus, you've got to admit, it's all pretty freakin' cool, right?"

John feels a flare of irritation. Nothing about what felicity is going through is 'cool'. But he stamps on it hard. That's not what Cisco meant and he shouldn't have to deal with the results of his exhaustion. John has more self-control than that.

Roy however, who just arrived, has no such reservations.

"Yeah? Tell that to the girl holing herself up in a cell right now, because she's afraid to be around people."

Cisco sobers immediately.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean…"

"I know what you mean Cisco," John interrupts gently, glaring at Roy who just stalks back out. "And you can just call me Digg."

When Oliver walks into STAR Labs, the slightly alarmed look that the redhead doc greets him with puzzled him, but it's not until he gets to Barry and John that he gets it.

The reaction is instantaneous.

HE takes a threatening step towards Barry, his voice falling so low that it's almost a growl.

"You did what?"

Barry doesn't try to run from his anger, holds his arms up and accepts it instead. "It wasn't my idea! I tried to talk her out of it!"

Oliver turns to Diggle, eyes blazing with cold fury. "How could you let this happen?"

The accusation in his voice isn't subtle at all and the betrayal chases right on its tail. John passes a hand on his tired face.

"Couldn't stop her, man."

That gives Oliver pause and John watches, completely helpless as realization blanks Oliver's face and then fills it with fear.

"She… this was Felicity's idea?"

John nods. There is the kind of exhaustion in his eyes that seems to go beyond the physical. He feels like he's lost literal years of his life worth of stress these past few days alone.

"Why didn't you call me?"

"You were en route to the states by time this happened. There was no point."

Oliver's frown deepens. "How long… how long has she been in there?"

John just signs.

"How long John?"

"A day, more or less."

Oliver grits his teeth, looks away. And John, he knows his friend well enough to know what's going on behind his eyes: he sees the change happening. The determination hardening the lines of his face, cooling his eyes into a pitiless look that usually belongs beneath the hood.

His voice his hard when he speaks again.

"Doc, I'm gonna need a couple of things from you." He starts, but Caitlin is already handing him a small thermos.

"I figured if anyone could get her to do this, it would be you." She says with a shrug.

"Right." Oliver looks at the container in his hand like it's a foreign thing, but then he just nods. "What would happen if she didn't…"

"What happens to every creature that can't feed, i suppose." Caitlin says helplessly.

Oliver's face blanks out of any and all expression. "Open the door."

"Mr. Queen, I would advise…"

He looks at Wells with barely concealed hostility.

" Open the fucking door Wells !"

It feels like a bit of a deja vu to John. he's pretty sure that in the haze of the last three days, these words have been spoken before.

She is sitting in a corner of the cell, legs drawn to her chest and her arms wrapped against them, her forehead resting on her knees. He can tell by the small tremors of her shoulders that she's crying.

"Felicity…"

His voice is so soft it barely moves the air around him, Oliver knows that she heard him. When she looks up, her face is blotchy, eyes wide and puffy, bloodshot because of the tears that are still wet around on cheeks.

"Oliver," she breathes out his name in what appears to him as relief. "I heard you coming in."

"Yeah, I thought you might have."

She passes her hands over her face, wipes the tears away. "Heard about that did you? Pretty insane huh?"

Oliver just shrugs. "I've seen weirder things."

Her laughter is bitter, it catches in her throat. "I doubt that."

"I saw a demon being pulled out of a thirteen year old girl once."

She frowns at him. The narrows her eyes the way she does when she calls bullshit.

"I swear. This guy put a big mirror over her, and said some words in latin. And when i looked at the mirror again i almost lost it cause the thing was there, like it was trapped or something. Weirdest thing I've see by far."

This is the strangest thing he's ever told her of his past, but he's been dropping secrets on her for a while. Six months really, so in a way, this is almost familiar.

"What happened to the girl?"

"She got out of it fine." Oliver assures her.

"And the… demon?"

"We threw the mirror from the fifth floor's balcony. Ended up landing right on top of the cab we'd taken to get there."

Felicity doesn't say anything, just looks at him for really long moments. Oliver hates the bars that separate them more with every passing second.

This is ridiculous!

He takes a step towards her and that newfound calm on her face immediately melts to alarm.

"What are you doing?" the panic is clear in her voice as he pulls at the door separating them, opening it. "No, no. Stop!"

She's on her feet now, and pushing herself against the wall so hard that she seems like she wants to melt through it to get away from him.

Instinctively it stops him, even though Oliver knows that it's not him that she's actually afraid of.

He's starting to hate this place with passion reserved for very few versions of hell he's known.

"Felicity, I'm going to come closer now."

"No, you're not." She says firmly. "You're going to get out and lock that door!"

"No." He keeps his voice calm, quiet, hoping that it will ease her into some kind of calm the same way Sara's steady voice and heartbeat eased him not even a few days ago. "I'm not leaving you in here. So if you want to stay, fine. But we'll be sharing a cell."

He takes one small step towards her and watches her cringe.

"Don't come any closer!" It's a warning but it sounds more like a plea.

The look on her face, that naked fear, it's all so surreal, it feels like he's stepped into one of his nightmares. "Felicity, I'm not… You know I'd never hurt you."

She throws him an exasperated look.

"I'm not afraid of you, you idiot. I'm afraid for you!"

Oliver let's go of a slow breath. "Don't be. You're not going to hurt me either."

Fresh tears collect on her still-wet lashes. "They said… they…"

"I know."

Her shoulders slump and she sits back down in the same position he found her in, her face against her knees, hidden from him. Her voice comes muffled through them.

"This doesn't make any sense!"

"No it really doesn't," because he can't deny the obvious. Felicity looks up and Oliver tries to school his face into some sort of encouraging expression. "But we'll figure it out together ok?"

She looks him in a way that he can't really fathom. He doesn't have to. Her tears fall so fast down her face it's like they had been waiting for him to say those exact words all that time

"You're scared."

"I'm not." He's petrified really.

Felicity scoffs. "Tell that to your face."

Oliver is almost halfway to her by then. He sits down almost a foot away - close enough to be close, but not so much as to crowd her.

He opens the small container that Caitlin gave him and inside it, between packets of ice, there were three neatly bags of blood, so dark that their insides looks almost black in the dim light.

Felicity closes her eyes against them, against reality, her breath coming out harsh and shaky.

"This is insane." She whispers. "It can't be real. It just can't be."

"It is what it is, Felicity. Doesn't matter if it's insane or not."

She opens her eyes to look at him but they're so glazed that she doesn't even seem to see him. ( Oliver will realize later that that's not it. Her pupils were simply so blown out that they made her eyes seem unfocused .)

"You realize that you're offering me a bag of blood, which i am supposed to drink, because now i'm apparently a vampire. In a world where vampires are apparently a thing that exists."

The words are so ridiculous. They don't make sense. They bring forth a whole mythology of stupid movies he never liked that have nothing to do with the girl that he saw deteriorate into painful death before she woke up and took a breath days later.

They have nothing to do with the reality of Felicity right now, hiding in a hole because she's afraid she's going to attack her friends because she can't keep food down when her body needs something else.

"You know, when i first got to the Island and actually had to fight… Slade put a knife in my hand and told me 'this you use to kill. You're going to kill someone or get killed'. And that was it."

Her tears have dried on her cheeks, and she's looking at him so intently and so still that Oliver feels the weight of this moment as if it was a real person on his shoulder. He feels it as he felt her weight in his arms that day: it was the whole world he'd been holding.

"That was insane to me too." He tells her softly. It had been. "It was impossible, but i did it anyway."

Oliver takes one hand from where they're curled around her folded legs, and she gives it. He holds in both of in his before he folds her fingers around one of the blood bags.

"We are what we need to be to survive."

She shakes her head though. "I don't think i can be this ."

Oliver feels the first flutters of real fear. His fingers tighten around hers gently.

"You have to ." For a moment he almost panics. But he can't very well shake her and tell her 'you can't die' until she believed it. It occurs him then that he doesn't have to. That he knows how to get Felicity to be the bravest she ever is.

"And if you cant do it for yourself… do it for me, and John and Roy. Your mom." one of his hands wraps tightly around her pulse. "We can't just accept things, remember?"

Her fingers twitch in his and she draws back her hand, taking the blood bag with her. Oliver's relief is so real it lets him take a lungful of air and be satisfied with it for the first time since he walked in here.

"I'll need a moment."

"Felicity..."

The last thing he wants is to leave her alone right now, but the next words out of her mouth stopped him cold.

"Please. Just… I can't do this if you're still here. Please get out."

He takes a shuddering breath and lets go, stands up and then walks out of the little cell. She hasn't looked away from the blood bags, but does not need to. The tears are in her voice.

Felicity hears him leaving, hears his echoing steps all the way out to the fortified doors of the accelerator, where he stops, waiting for her. She can't tear her eyes away from the blood bags in her hands, she can't stand up, can't move.

This is nonsensical, her brain whispers to her. It's ridiculous and at the mere thought of tasting blood her belly rolls.

But it's not disgust that's was making it clench that way.

She was starving and hurting because of it.

She hadn't felt hunger like this ever before. It was sharp and focused, as if she hadn't eaten in days and the only thing she wanted was what she was holding in her hands.

But that's a lie though isn't it? She'd wanted to bite Oliver too, stared at his throat and known as she did that she'd love, love , to sink her teeth into him and tasting what was in his veins.

It was what had made her shudder when he came closer.

It had terrified her enough that her knees had turned to water. She didn't recognise herself in those thoughts. Doesn't recognize herself in these ones either.

But he is gone now and she holds the key to her own deliverance in her hands.

Maybe if she doesn't do this, it won't be real. Maybe this is just an elaborate nightmare, and she never woke from that coma anyway.

She'd tried that thought. Pinched herself so hard it bruised.

This is real.

Only one way to go: straight through.

She unscrews the tiny cap on the blood bag. The scent of it fills the room and Felicity expects to be grossed out but instead she just brings it closer to her lips and sucks.

It tastes weird. She doesnt stop until she'd gone through all three of the bags Oliver brought her.

She cries the whole time.

* * *

Notes:

please guys, take mercy on my medical mumbo jumbo stuff. they're pure bullshit, out of which i've tried to make sth that sounds respectable enough not to pull you out of the story, but i got them from sites that said 'yes camps are real, this is how' and i'm no doctor, so bear that in mind for this part of the fic.


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